Do you go through a ton of printer ink?

[Novafan]

We are just getting started and I find myself printing so much out on our printer and I fear I am eating through ink.

Does anyone have a really good resource for affordable refills?

[Sue G in PA]

Fast Draft for most print jobs it will save a ton of ink. You probably already know that, but thought I'd mention it. I only use normal or best settings for things like maps that have a ton of detail or grayscale.

[Vicki]

Walgreens refills black ink cartridges for $10 and color cartridges for $15. I've done that a couple of times. I go through a lot of ink.
God bless,
Vicki

[StaceyinLA]

(it's an inkjet copier so it uses the regular inkjet inks instead of toner), and THREE printers (one being a print/scan/copy). All in all FOUR different types of ink cartridges. It's pretty ridiculous!

[Gamom3]

Draft saves a lot of ink and I rarely, rarely print in color.

[cin]

We have an inkjet for color copies and a laser printer. The toner costs more for the laser (last one was $60 from amazon) but it lasts a whole school year, almost! The color inkjet is about $45 for a color cartridge and 25 for black. The other thing I like about laser is that it doens't run if it gets wet. I do make most of my copies on draft or fast mode. My laser is a multi-function HP. We have purchased refurb and off brand cartridges and not had good luck with them.

I copy all my workborks that allow me to, so that dd2 can use them too. In the end, it's cheaper than buying 2 of everything. The laser is B&W only, but it's GREAT!!!!

[Kim in TN]

Ink is just too expensive. We switched to a laser printer.

[Novafan]

Yes, we are already doing the fast draft in black, but I seem to use my printer so much.

My DH has wanted a laser printer for years. Maybe this will be his chance to get one.

[ChrisN in NY]

Fast draft or everyday modes will save you a lot of ink.

The most savings has come to me in refilling my ink cartridges myself. I buy my ink from www.encoreink.com (http://www.encoreink.com) (a homeschool family). The ink is not "universal" refill ink, but is the ink for your make and model printer.

A brand new black cartridge for my printer costs $28. I bought 8 oz of black ink from Encore Ink, along with the supplies needed to refill, for less than $25, and it will refill my cartridge something like 8 or 10 times.

Encore Ink has great, speedy service, and wonderful support.

HTH,
ChrisN

[Deidre in GA]

cost per page for laser printers is considerably lower than inkjets. given how inexpensive laser printers have become, especially Brothers, it's worth it to get a laser if most of your printing is B/W. i rarely let my son print anything before we got a laser. once the Brother was set up, networked throughout the 4 computers in the house, he prints up 500 page pdf manuals without mom having a heart attack.

[Kristafish]

You haven't had any problems with Walgreens refilling yours?
I have seen this but didn't know if it was good enough..

Thanks :D

I just told hubby maybe we should look into a laser printer..

[KristineIN]

I'm hoping for a laser printer soon. Maybe if we get a tax refund and get some other bills down. I recently put a bug in DH's ear that I want want. He wanted to get one a long time ago and I said no. They've come down in price now though.

Kristine

[GLOWAcademy]

I refill mine about 3 times b4 i go buy a new one :) Saves alot of money.

[KristineIN]

Has anyone used Cartridge World? Just curious, we have one up the road, I might stop in tomorrow and see how much it would be. I have one empty cartridge sitting here.

Kristine

[WTMCassandra]

I recommend biting the bullet and buying a workhorse B&W laser. Preferably one that does double-sided printing. We bought one about three years ago and haven't looked back. An ink cartridge costs between $85 and $100, and it lasts for a whole year. And I do a LOT of printing. A. Lot.

I think inkjet printers are simply money pits.

[Miss Peregrine]

Kodak all-in-one

$14.99 for color and $9.99 for b/w ink

They last longer than the ink did for my Lexmark.

[Deb in NZ]

only because of the high cost of ink in our Lexmark printers. My dh wasn't too keen on me buying a new printer when we had 3 working printers, but when I explained that what we saved in ink costs in less that a year we would cover the cost of the new printer, he said go ahead & get it. I've sold one of my old printers to my sil & hope to sell the other 2 & make back some of our outlay as finances are a bit tight. But a working printer is a necessity in our homeschool.

Blessings,

[happymainemom]

I'm getting Dell ink (I don't know what kind you have) at Staples now for about $13, I think. That is less than ebay.

[lynn]

We now have a HP laser jet1018 we purchased on sale at Staples and we have not purchased ink cartridges in the 4 month we've had it. Now I have seen signs at walgreens that they refill ink cartridges fairly cheap.

[Kelli in TN]

Echoing the others here, we do our color copies on on my HP 4 in 1 but black and white printing is done on my bottom of the line Samsung laser.

When I decided to to use MEP math with three kids, I knew I had to find a more cost effective way to print all those pages! That is when we bought the laser printer.

[Peek a Boo]

when our printer/scanner/copier died while dh was unemployed, a friend gave us an old dinosaur of a printer --an HP LaserJet 4. We get cartridges from PrintPal.com for about $30 [+ a 10% coupon they send you]. yes, it practically lasts the whole year, and I print TONS of stuff! TONS!!

I still love my all-in-one for color pics --and i do print those too :-)
If I need to make a copy, I'm getting pretty quick at scanning it in via the all-in-one and printing it via the laserjet.

I was gonna chunk the old laserjet cuz it takes up so much space, but dh said h*** no --the ink is tooo cheap! he is right --I ordered two extra cartridges back in Sep in anticipation of printing a LOT of fliers for a local election, but even w/ the hundreds I printed out, I'm still going strong --i haven't even opened them yet. I'd bet that you can get at LEAST a few thousand copies off this laserjet. i print stuff for co-op, scouts, homeschool, group activities and other things on almost a daily basis.

[K&Rs Mom]

I've been wanting a laser too, but want to keep the all-in-one for color and for copying. How do you all make it work with 2 separate machines? I'm thinking space limitations AND computer limitations (only so many ports in our machine).

[Peek a Boo]

well, as far as ports, what all do you have hooked up? 2 printers should fit a regular ol' computer tower just fine.

The space is one that bugs me: we have a printer on each side of the computer --it helps having them spaced "w/in reach". i do have to be sure to send the documents to the proper printers. The laserjet is the default printer, so if something prints there it's a less expensive mistake ;)

[GLOWAcademy]

I just bought an HP Deskjet F380 all in one ,it scans,coppies,prints, I Like it but I like my LexmarkZ22 better :)

[KristineIN]

Yesterday I scored big time in refillable ink. I was at Meijer and I found HP refill kits for ink on clearance. The one for HP56 was marked down to $11.00, but when I checked the prices, it was $6.00 so I grabbed the last two. It's an automatic refill system, so you just do what it says and it refills the cartridge for you. It says it refills up to 5 cartridges, so if I refill 10 times for $12.00, that's not bad at all. I hope that it works, but if not, I'm only out $12.00

Kristine