The most cost-effective way will always be a pair of glasses.
I’m too poor and cowardly to have a laser fix my eyes.
Glasses usually have obscene markups. Imo, the most cost effective way is often lasik (or similar), but it’s an up front cost.
I think I paid 4k usd for both eyes, but that was something like 10 years ago and with no assistance from insurance.
I still get an eye exam every few years just to make sure everything is okay, but I am expecting another 10 years before I need too start thinking about vision correction again. Also, I’m fairly certain the provider that performed my lasik offered a warranty and would perform additional corrections as I age, but I don’t live anywhere near the location anymore.
When I compare that to the combined cost of insurance, exams, glasses, contacts, and prescription sunglasses that my wife pays… lasik was a significant cost savings for me (and that’s not counting any quality of life benefits).
I pay $100 for my eye exam and $150 for my glasses every couple years.
It would take 30+ years for that cost to reach the Lasik levels you paid, and that’s assuming I’m not doing anything with the $3750 remaining after the first appointment.
I use my 14-year-old prescription to get a couple pairs of glasses from Zenni every couple years. Averages about $75/yr.
I don’t see how lasik could possibly be a cost savings. I’ve gotten fairly nice glasses for $150 without insurance. I’ve gotten glasses for less than that with insurance.
One pair of glasses can last a long time if you take care of them (and if your eyes don’t get worse).
LASIK isn’t a permanent solution and eventually you’ll need glasses again.
A pair of glasses would have cost me about 350 euros every 3 years. Eye surgery cost me 980 euros and I should not require glasses for at least 20. So surgery has saved me at least 1350 euros. Failing at calculations like that is one more way for the poor to stay poor.
Your last sentence is an example of the Boots Theory
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
Doesn’t translate with Asian countries. Glasses are dirt cheap whereas lasik operations are pretty expensive af.
