Digital Cameras, Printing Costs... Worth it to me.

The pictures my children take....
(all photo credits on this post belong to my 5 and 3 year old girls)
I have enjoyed taking pictures since I was a teenaged girl. Even before then. But somewhere around high school my favorite uncle lent me his Minolta SLR. OH! Did I take pictures. I learned to print black and white for journalism class. I took roles and rolls of film. My first anniversary present from my husband was that he took 13 rolls of film in to have them printed and gave them to me with two empty photo albums. (Geez I do love him!) Printing film is expensive and inconvenient. Wal Mart ruined or lost some of my pics. I lost rolls of film for various reasons.
My first digital camera came to me loaned third hand. It was passed from my in laws to my son and then to me whenever I needed to borrow it. It suddenly died one day. I was very upset, my son was OK with it. It was September. I immediately began campaigning for a new digital camera for Christmas. I shamelessly mentioned it to everyone, hoping my husband would follow through for me. I researched cameras and brands and sales. I decided on a particular brand and model. However, after handling the cameras at different electronics stores I changed my mind. While there were negative features associate with the camera I eventually chose, I liked the way it rested in my hand, the features seemed logical and common sense to me. (I admit to never even reading the instruction manual, and being fairly ignorant of many of it's lovely features-and use other features only very rarely).  I use an Olympus point and shoot. It can be slow, and some features take multiples steps to utilize, it was a gift and was pretty pricey -but it takes beautiful pictures, I do use some of the special features, and it continues to serve me well after three years.
I use my camera every day. It's both a creative outlet and a wonderful tool. It helps me to keep in touch with my family half a world away, it allows me to document our lives, it has helped with my husband's job and my creative pursuits. My kids coveted my camera and wanted to take pictures with it. 
I really jump at the chance to let my kids be creative and participate in activities I think are within their abilities, and I WANT to let them take pictures, but not really with my camera. I shopped around online for used and cheap cameras. 
At first I looked at giving them something like a camera, or a non working old camera. But they needed to see their pictures. My then three year old (now five) daughter asked me if I looked "online" for a camera for her. Once she got the idea that I would buy her her very own camera she held onto it and kept inquiring on my progress. I got a false start with a thrift store camera -it took a sony proprietary card and AA batteries, they did love it but it was lost on a trip. They had been fighting over it most of the time, and none of us can remember when, exactly, we last saw it.
I kept looking. I didn't see anything I liked, and I had some specific criteria in mind. I was looking for something with 4 (+) Mega pixels, that took an SD card, and readily available batteries, that had a view screen, and was a major brand name. I posted an ad on a community "yard sale" site with all my requests. Quite a few people responded, most asking $45 or more. A few people responded and it fell through, one woman lived too far away and then ended up selling her camera before we could meet. I bought one camera for five dollars (so lucky!) which fell out of my car and broke (so unlucky!). One person, a nice woman who wanted to "declutter" and buy a new digital SLR, sold me two digital cameras (originally purchased in '98 or something) that (as I spcified) took an SD card and regular AA batteries for $15 (together). She told me that she was really happy the cameras would be used, and that she made sure her husband didn't throw them out when he'd bought a new camera not that long ago, thinking someone might want them. And she was right.   These cameras continue to work great. I put their memory cards right into my printer's card reader and my kids can see their pictures on my computer. We can even make prints of really good photos.
I consider the time, effort and money well spent. It was fun and satisfying for me to shop for girls like this and for this purpose.
My kids use these cameras for such pursuits as photographing the cat, taking pictures of our yard, leaves, grass, each other -their own art and so on. Exactly as I had hoped. And occasionally one of us grown ups borrows their camera. What a switch up.