When I was in high school, I went into the Sunglass Hut at Haywood mall in Greenville, SC and bought a pair of sunglasses for about fifty bucks. That was the first real pair of sunglasses I had ever owned. They were great. They looked good and I looked good, if I do say so myself. However, I was scared to death that something was gonna happen to them. If they broke, I was out fifty bucks and that ain’t chump change to a high schooler. If my memory serves me correctly, I had those shades for close to a year which is an eternity for a 17 year old to keep something in good shape.

As the years passed, I had less and less of my parents’ money to spend on stuff, so I started buying cheaper sunglasses. We would stroll into Walmart or the Dollar Store from time to time and see those racks of CHEAP sunglasses for 4.99 to 7.99. So I’d buy a pair. They’d serve their purpose I suppose, and I thought they looked pretty legit, so I was happy. The problem was, they weren’t comfortable or durable at all. The first sign of danger and they would crack, or the lens would pop out if I talked too loudly. Not to mention, I didn’t care about them at all so they’d usually get lost after a few weeks. The sun would start beaming and I’d start squinting again. So back to the Dollar Store I’d go, and so forth and so on, repeating as needed.

I imagine that if you’re reading this that you can do simple math. Multiply the base price 4.99 times about ten to twelve pair of glasses per year, and then multiply that times the average annual inflation rate from 1997 to 2004 ( loose guess 2.67%) and then take the square root of…(maybe this is a bit more complicated than I projected it to be), but basically = A LOT OF DINERO.

So here we are. It’s 2017. The future. I’m almost forty years old now. I have a wife and two kids. I own a home and two cars. I can even buy things sometimes...mostly toys and diapers, but still. The point is that I’m an adult. Quality matters. I can either continue throwing money into numerous cheap products that will break or get lost OR I can buy a quality product that will last. A product that I will care about and take care of for the long haul. If you’re like me, you don’t have the time to spend buying a new pair of sunglasses every two weeks. I don’t want to. So I’ve decided to start spending MORE MONEY, LESS OFTEN.

This is the reason we have teamed up with Legacy Eyewear out of Wilmington, NC. They make high quality, durable sunglasses out of wood. Handcrafted out of local trees, they are meticulously designed to stand rigorous wear and tear. I’ve been wearing mine for almost two months now and I can honestly tell you, they are great. They are super lightweight, durable, comfortable on my face, and they look good. And since they are wood, they float! That’s just cool.

 Do me a favor, think about what matters to you. If you’re good with spending less money on cheaper products more often, then more power to you. No offense taken. But if you want to invest in better quality products that will last, you’ve come to the right place.