Cutting Print Ink and Paper Costs – PT. 1

In these cash-strapped times, saving money at the office and home has become especially important. Outlined below are a few well-planned cutbacks that could save you a bundle or two.

Probably the single largest ongoing expense with a printer is the printer cartridges. If you’re in the market of buying a new printer, opt for color printers that use separate ink cartridges for black, cyan, magenta and yellow as opposed to one tricolor cartridge. In this way, you are only replacing the specific colors as they run out. A tricolor cartridge is a single cartridge with three color chambers. It could be full of cyan and magenta but out of the yellow meaning you cannot print green or orange and other colors. You’ll have to opt to buy a new cartridge wasting the ink that is already in there. InkCloners.com has some of the best prices on ink cartridges.

Another way to save on the costs of printer ink cartridges is to refill them yourselves or go to a refilling store. Some people swear by the process and others question the quality. Others don’t even trouble themselves with the mess or time when you can get compatible cartridges online at pretty decent prices.

A tip for extending the life of a toner cartridge is to give it a little shake when you get the low-ink message. This can help get the toner flowing but take care when you do this because toner is so fine, it’ll find its way out of the many open holes in the cartridge and right on to your clothes.

At the office here, we have a great way to save on paper. We save our paper, printed by “mistake”, and start a scrap tray for sheets that we’ve only printed on one side and would otherwise throw away. When we need to print something temporary or another scrap print then we use the back of one of the sheets in the scrap tray. That way we get twice the use from one sheet.

That’s mostly it. We’ll have a follow up on what free software and tips that can be used to save costs even further.