Financially speaking, I’ve been rather fortunate this month. With the month coming to a close, I have succesfully saved £300 towards my D90!

However, I still needed another £120 from somewhere. Low and behold, I was surfing on Argos the other week and discovered that I could trade in my Nectar points for cash! Now, I’ve been collecting Nectar points for 5 years now. Never used any of it. Therefore, I had a substantial amount in my account. And eversince combining our Nectar accounts, J and I had a total of 25, 000 points.

With every 500 Nectar points you trade in, you get £2.50 in Argos vouchers. Now, if I actually sat down and thought about it, it sounds like a bloody crap deal! It took me way more than £2.50 to get those 500 points. If I didn’t want my camera so bad, I would have decided to just hold on to my points till a better deal comes along. But I…just…can’t..wait…any…longer!

However, it might be due to the constant moaning he’s been subjected to from me over the past few weeks as the challenge for saving for my D90 progressed OR he could just be a really really really sweet person but whatever it was, J has very kindly decided to donate his points to me so that I could get a whopping £125 off my camera!

With a retail price of £743.79, I will be getting my Nikon D90 this weekend for a bargain price of £618.79!

Sweeeeeet!

Compared to last month, this month has been rather easy on my wallet. I can’t begin to explain the withdrawal symptoms I’ve been experiencing not shopping for a whole month! Which probably explains my lack of fashion posts in recent days.

When I first started my challenge of saving up for my D90, a target date of the 29th of Sept seemed like a reasonable timeframe. However, over the past few weeks as I tried to raise the cash, I’ve been consumed with an overwhelming itch to get it NOW! Coupled with the fact that I really would like to use it for my photography class which is drawing to a close in a couple of weeks.

I dream about it, I’m constantly thinking about it, I’ve googled ‘eco-driving’ endlessly and adapted it in order to reduce my fuel bills; I scrutinize my finances everyday trying to figure out a way to get it right now.

For goodness sakes, I even gave up shopping for a whole month!

And…I think I’ve figured it out…

I’ve never realised how difficult it would be to keep track of my finances once the dreaded term ‘mortgage’ came into the equation. Long gone were the days when I paid a set amount every month regardless of rising fuel bills or council tax. I didn’t have a car and public transport worked fine for me. Everything was just so…simple.

Which was why I was really dissapointed when my good old trusted VW Polo broke down last month leading me to spend a substantial portion of my income fixing it.

I was really…really hoping to save at least half of my targeted £750…which obviously didn’t happen. I actually believed I could get the D90 before the 29th of Sept; maybe even in August. Wishful thinking I know now…

Oh well…

I guess I’m back down to my original plan of Sept 09.

However, despite everything, we sold our dishwasher (which came with the house) on eBay for £160. Which brings in a decent £80 for my half.

Savings for my D90 – The Challenge Update:

£250 £330 saved.

Unfortunately, we’re left with a sink with a big gaping hole beneath it. Now, if only we can figure out how to redirect the plumbing…

I’m sure in a household with two engineers, we can figure it out soon enough before the dishes keep piling up even higher…Right?!?

I was really looking forward to my class this week. We had a break for two whole weeks and I was itching to get into the studio and get some frames.

We had a lovely little girl called Holly this time and she was an absolute star! I was quite worried that she might get bored and lethargic posing for the 6 of us so I managed to be the 3rd people to get behind the lens and shoot away (which didn’t matter eventually because she posed for all 6 of us brilliantly).

It was definitely an experience working with a kid.

I had to constantly engage her in conversation yet concentrate on taking some decent shots. Therefore, there were a few shots of her in mid-sentence which weren’t exactly ideal. I couldn’t really tell her what to do so I had to move and work around her to get the right lighting and exposure. Not the best subject matter when you’re on manual focus. It was a challenge but definitely worth it.

I came out of the class feeling rather happy with my shots but wishing I had my D90 which definitely would have guaranteed a few more decent in-focus shots.

We’ll be on location next week and I’m hoping to bring J along which will be interesting. In the meantime, you can check out my gallery for the latest snaps.

Alliance and Leicester is offering a £100 cashback when you switch to their Premier current accounts.

The catch is: you must transfer your existing current account and it’s direct debits/standing orders to the new A&L account and pay in a minimum of £500 every month. Since I had a HSBC current account which I was thinking of getting rid of anyway, this sounded like a perfect opportunity for me to do so and gain £100 towards my D90.

It didn’t take as long as I thought; mainly due to their automated ’switching service’ which made it much easier to switch my direct debits. (Me being me…I’m still going to confirm with my existing bank to ensure that it has indeed been transferred over).

All in all, application took me a couple of hours and I’m £100 richer (see note below).

Saving for my D90 – The Challenge Update:

£150 £250 saved.

Note: It apparently takes 4 months for the £100 to show up in your account so for those who desperately need to have the cash in hand immediately, that’s not going to happen.

However, for ease of the budget calcualtions and not over-complicating things too much, I’m assuming that I will receive the £100 before the 29th of Sept. Therefore, have taken the £100 (which I’ve yet to receive) into consideration in my calculations. I’ve never banked with A&L before…so we shall see how it pans out…

Since the purchase of my D40, coupled with the more adventurous photography I’ve been doing in my classes and my photowalks, I’m beginning to feel the limitations of what my D40 has to offer me.

Don’t get me wrong…it’s a brilliant camera and one which I hope to keep for a long long time. My personal opinion? Give it a few years and it will be a classic and worth a lot more than what you can get it for now. It’s successor, the D40x (which is worth roughly £150 more) has already seen it’s production ceased while the originial D40 is still being manufactured.

The problem I have with it however, is that it only autofocuses with the latest AF-S lenses and some older AF-I lenses. If I were to use any traditional AF lenses, I would need to manually focus my shots (not ideal if I’ve got a kid that can’t sit still for more than 5 seconds). Therefore, by having a D40, I would need to invest a lot more on newer and latest lenses. However, if I were to get a better body; for example a D90, I would easily be able to autofocus on older lenses (which are just as good as the newer models and cheaper too).

There’s only one problem…the D90 costs £750.Don’t know about you…but 750 buckaroos is a hell lot of money for me.

I therefore have 2 options:

1) Max out my credit card and get it next week. (And be in debt with a hefty 15.9% interest rate).

2) Give myself a sensible period of time to raise some money and pay for it in cash. (While at the same time, doing my bit to boost the economy and not adding another £750 to our national debt)

After much deliberation, I have decided to go with Option 2.

My target date…29th Sept 2009 which also happens to be the day I turn 25. Which gives me exactly 4 months! I have £150 stashed away so I’m already 20% there! Easy peezy!

You can follow my progress via the image in the right sidebar.