Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Award, the discount and the camera

My employer (Walgreens) is very generous with employee discounts. We get a 15% discount on everything but dairy products every day. We get a 20% discount on Walgreens products every day. But every now and then, for various reasons, they'll give us one day with a 25% discount.

Now, I work in the Photo/Camera department, and I get to see all the new high-megapixel digital cameras. For some time I'd been looking for something to replace my four megapixel 3x zoom digital camera. We had a nice eight megapixel, 5x zoom, 3" LCD display GE camera come in that looked real nice. But at $149.99 there was no way I could afford it. Even with my 15% discount it was out of my price range. But then came 25% discount day. At the same time I received an unexpected check - a $100 award for a suggestion I submitted to the company ($67 after taxes). I also took some aluminum cans to be recycled, which earned me another $5.00! So I bought the camera! After the discount, minus the check amount and can money, I ended up paying only about $46 for my new $149.99 camera!

I'm now trying to decide if I should sell my old camera, which would bring down the cost of the new camera even more. Or should I send the new camera to mom in hopes that she would learn how to use it. That's what I'd really like to do - send it to mom. But I don't think she'd use it much. She doesn't really take many pictures. So I'm still thinking. If I sold it I wouldn't get much. Technology is moving ahead so fast that my "old" digital camera is only worth about $50 brand new. If that much. Maybe I'll try to sell it on ebay. And I'll throw in a 1gb SD card.

Part of me wants to keep it. I'll keep the new camera at home to use for special occasions - special picture taking sessions. And I'll keep the old camera with me for spontaneous photo opportunities. I have this fear of losing any camera I'm carrying around on a regular basis, so I don't want to take the new one. On the other hand I miss a lot of photo ops when I don't take a camera with me. Decisions, decisions.

I'm going to go out and take some pictures with my new camera soon, and I'll be sure to post some of them here. Some videos, too. "Watch this space!"

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