about time

You may or may not remember that for my birthday last July, Patrick told me I could pick out an SLR camera as one of my gifts.  I have wanted one for such a long time and immediately started doing a ton of online research.  I got a little overwhelmed when I realized how many choices were out there and couldn’t decide what the best option for me would be.  Then I got busy with life and forgot about it for a while.  Every couple months or so, I’d do a little more research and get even more overwhelmed.  Fast forward to a couple weeks ago—I realized if I didn’t hurry and figure out what camera I wanted, my birthday would come around AGAIN and Patrick would try to pull a fast one and make this camera count for my birthday gift for the second time!  Not if I have anything to say about it!  I got really serious about my researching and talked to a lot of my friends who are SLR camera owners.  Then yesterday, I went to a local camera store and talked to one of their experts for about 30 minutes—Emery was going crazy, but I came away with my mind made up.  I knew who my new little friend would be.  Isn’t she beautiful?

After all my research, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to buy the kit lens that the camera comes with, and my conversation with Mr. Camera Guy confirmed that for me.  Before I even asked him about it, he started raving about the 50mm f/1.8 lens, which is the one I was leaning towards.  It’s a prime lens, which means it doesn’t zoom at all, but I’m not much of a zoomer on my point-n-shoot camera, so that really won’t be an issue for me.  (Someday, I’m sure I’ll want to invest in a zoom lens, but this one will do just fine until then for most of the shots I’ll take.)

So, why didn’t I buy the camera right then and there?  Well, would YOU have bought the camera there if you knew you could have saved over $725 by buying it somewhere else?  I didn’t think so.

Here’s how the savings worked out:

Nikon D90 (body only) from camera shop:  $850

50mm f/1.8 lens from camera shop:  $150

TOTAL = $1000

 

Nikon D90 (body only) from JR.com:  $749.88

50mm f/1.8 lens from JR.com:  $124

TOTAL = $873.88 (with free shipping and ZERO tax)

 

But wait!  That’s not over $725 in savings?  Oh, did I forget to mention that we had $600 worth of gift cards for JR.com that we got as rewards points for using our credit cards?  I LOVE free money!  My total came to just $273.88!

I can’t wait to get my camera and since it’s just shipping from NYC, there’s a possibility it will arrive before we leave for the beach on Saturday!

This purchase that has been 11 months in the making was just what I needed yesterday.  I’ve been having a little bit of a rough time with all the stress that having a house on the market brings, combined with the fact that Patrick has been out in Colorado for over a week working away at his new job.  Patrick worked a ton in his old job, so you’d think I’d be used to not having him around much and that it wouldn’t be that much of a change to have him out of town for two weeks.  Not so.  Even if I went to bed before Patrick came home, I always knew he’d be there when I woke up in the morning, which makes all the difference.  This business of having him gone for eleven nights in a row is just not cutting it!  Thankfully, he’s coming back late Friday night so he can join us (and his parents and his sisters and their families) at Isle of Palms for a week.  I always look forward to beach trips, but this time I’m even more excited since it means that I’ll have my husband back for a little while!