How to Save Money on Printer Ink?

Although the world is going digital, there are still lots of reasons we need to print, so the price of printer ink and price per page for printing can really matter. Here are few helpful tips to save money on printer ink.

Printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids on the planet. Ink is sold by the milliliter, but if you do the math, you’ll find it costs thousands of dollars per gallon. My goal is to use as little of that precious liquid as possible.

One way to save money on ink is to get generic cartridges or have your cartridges refilled. Printer manufactures will tell you that this will yield poor results and might even damage the printer, but a lot of people do it without any ill effects.
When you buy a particular printer model, you are committed to buying the printer ink cartridges specifically made for it, no matter how expensive they are. And printer ink cartridges indeed are expensive. This can feel a bit oppressive when it seems that you have no choice but to buy costly ink cartridges in order to keep using your printer. If you print heavily, share your computer and printer or have children who print colorful webpages, you probably find yourself needing to replace ink cartridges frequently.

There are several things you can do to keep money in your pocket and lessen the landfill load when it comes to ink cartridges. This tip may sound silly, but you should print a document only when you need to. You can definitely extend the life of your ink cartridges this way simply because you are not using them. On the downside, the ink in your cartridges may dry up from non-usage so make sure that you print something at least once a week.

Refilling ink cartridges can be a messy affair if you take it on yourself. A number of stores will refill them for you. However, not all ink cartridges are refillable. Find out from the stores that sell office supplies or have a photo department near you if they refill cartridges for your printer model. During printing, streaking is an indicator that the cartridge is running out of ink. This is the perfect time for a refill, as the cartridge should be filled before it runs dry.

The drivers for all ink jet printers give you choices for the speed and quality of your prints. Economy or draft mode uses less ink and usually prints a lot faster. Since a great deal of printing is for internal consumption – proofing documents or sharing them with co-workers or family members – it might make sense to set the default for economy or draft and use “normal” or high-quality mode only when printing glossy photos or documents that need to make a good impression.When buying printers in the future, finding out if the ink cartridges it uses are refillable can save you money in the long run.

Check out the owner’s manual for your printer to learn how to print drafts and unimportant documents in draft mode. (If you can’t find your manual, visit the brand’s website. They often have PDF versions online.) Printing in this mode uses less ink. When you print your documents, you can use draft settings and grayscale printing instead of the full color gamut if the document you are printing is only for your reference. In this way, you only get to spend on black ink cartridges on a regular basis. Black ink is cheaper than colored ones.

By simply previewing your document before printing, you can catch formatting errors and typos that will eliminate the need to reprint documents later. If unsupervised, most kids will make endless prints from their favorite sites. Set a clear limit on the number of pages your children are allowed to print each day.