Picture it. The year is 2008... it's fall. Leaves are colored red, orange, and yellow. The scent of cinnamon and nutmeg looms in the chilly air and summer is but a memory. Can you feel it? I remember it well. I landed from New York into my home state of Michigan. It wasn't too long before my family noticed my eyeglasses with super-cool Transitions lenses in them! My mom "ooohed" and "ahhhed" at them. My sisters wanted to try them on. My grandmother wanted to know how much they cost - she always taught me to get a good deal... but in this case the answer was $500. When those numbers came out of my mouth, I thought my grandmother was going to fall over! She screamed "$500!! Are you crazy? Who has that kind of money in this economy?!?!" I tried to explain that I actually saved money by not having to buy two pairs of glasses! Needless to say, she did not want to hear any  more!

A few days later, while all the kids were playing, my then three-year-old nephew came up and tapped me on the shoulder. He asked "Auntie Hil, turn your glasses dark!" We walked outside and I showed him how my prescription eyeglasses went from light to dark just by stepping outside. "WOW! Do it again!" he exclaimed. So we did the process over again. He then asked to hold my glasses. I gladly gave them to him and told him to be careful. Then I heard a "snap!" followed by an "uh-oh!" Given that he's three, I should have seen this coming. Who gives a three-year-old a pair of $500 glasses?! To add insult to injury, my grandmother started giggling! She said "serves you right! You should never have spent so much money on eyeglasses!" All I kept thinking was "this happens to people all the time! What do they do when this happens?" My sister told me that these were not the first pair of glasses her son has demolished (now she tells me!) and she advised me to look for replacements... many replacements.

In a nutshell, I went to six different stores to find a cheap pair of prescription glasses. Let's just say there is no such thing as cheap glasses in a retail optical store. I did the best I could at one of the 1-hour optical shops but they messed up my prescription - I opted for contacts and wore those instead. When I returned to New York, I went online and found that I could actually replace my frames with Transitions lenses for around $150. I saved more than half of what I paid for my original glasses for a pair of "replacements!" In reality, I liked the new ones more than the old ones. For another $40 I got a cool pair of regular glasses as a back-up pair... and an obsession with eyeglasses was born.

Moral of the story: it's always good to have a back-up pair of glasses - especially if you're around kids or pets - but it's even better when you can save money on the deal!

Article Written by Hillary Rubin, Stylist and Creative Marketing Director at GlassesUSA