Yeah, I wear reading glasses and have a magnifer in my welding hood on top of that. I use an older SpeedGlass hood that I like real good. I usually TIG weld and set it on 8 or 9 depending on amps. 9 or 10 for MIG and I use a fixed lens hood with a 11 lens when stick welding (which isn't often anymore).I'm old too, 69, and my poor old eyes don't work as well as the used to. I find that a pair of Dollar Store reading glasses help immensely, about 2 diopter I think. I also bought a $120 Radnor auto hood the other day, not sure what model, but it's an order of magnitude better than the $60 Harbor Freight auto hood, and has replaceable batteries. For MIG I have the shade set to 9 as I recall.
All of the above, also make sure you cut the wire at the contact tip before each start. I like to bend the wire at the contact tip, place the wire against a gloved hand pull the trigger and the drive rolls should be tight enough to coil the wire against the hand with .030/.035 hard wire. If not you have one of the problems listed above, process of eliminanation.Check grounds, and clean the object to be welded also.