Actually, what you have, instead of film, is a
memory card. Depending on the camera, it varies. I think I have a SD card or something for my Canon Elph. Anyways, that's where the photos save to. Depending on whether your computer has the slots or not, you could simply stick the memory card/stick into the computer, w/o the camera, and access it there. That's how people edit photos and stuff.
When you go to print out digital photos, if you go to walmart, target, etc., you just stick the memory card into a slot and press options on the screen, selecting which pictures you want to print. It's pretty convenient.
You wouldn't waste film. In fact, you're just using the memory card over and over. Think of it as a usb flash drive -- you can remove files/photos from it by using the computer. Of course, if you need a bigger memory card, you'll have to spend a little bit on it, but it will last a while.

Hope that helps, since depending on the size of the card and the quality of the photos, you can fit 100-400 photos on it.