Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The Printer In Your Life and How It Drains the Bank Account..

I'm not going to recommend any printer (I have a love/hate relationship with them) but my current one is about 10 years old and it's an HP.  It's ok...(although it's crunching a fair amount of innocent paper lately so it might be having cardiac arrest soon.. )

The thing is, the darn thing sucks up ink like a lush on a bender.  Cartridges, at K-Mart/Walmart etc are $15. ON ebay  I can sometimes grab them for $10 .  at one a week?? not doing either of those.  So???


So
I buy the black ink in a kit and refill those myself. Have the printer set to only print black and in FAST DRAFT Mode.

Why FAST DRAFT?? cause it makes my ink last 2x as long. So here's how you get there. Go to the control panel on your PC (Mac folks?? I have no CLUE but it can be done by you too cause my kid did it)>>>

Anyway Go to the Control Panel, open Devices and Printers, Find your printer, open Settings or Adjust Setting  and find Print Mode or style and select FAST DRAFT

It's way way way way way more economical. An 8 oz bottle of ink cost me $16 plus shipping and will last me a year almost. Instead of 52 or more cartridges. I do buy 5-6 cartridges a year because sometimes they just can't be reused any more but that's minimal compared to buying new ones...

Share the post, we all need to know these "tips". someone told me, pass it along! 

(and please feel free to share your money saving tips... either ask to be an author, or put your tips in the comments section)

4 comments:

fireangel said...

Great Post! Now in Windows 7 do what Beth says but when you get to Printers right click on your printer and select Printing Preferences, then scroll down and select Fast/Economical Printing. Click Apply, then Ok and you're set! Does make a difference. Thanks Beth!

PhoenixRising2000 said...

Love your style. LOL. You are a brave woman! I can't imagine trying to refill a cartridge. It gives me shivers and visions of black ink splashing on everything. I have almost solved the problem by going paperless to a great degree. I can search my pc for anything - can't search the paper. Just my opinion.
Elaine

mymomsbooks said...

Always thinking! Must be all the postage and invoices you print.
Your ebay store rocks with all your collectible treasures.

kdmoretti said...

Wish I`d known this before ! I`ve been going through a cartridge a week with all the invoices and labels for AZ I`ve been printing Now I`ll see how long a cartridge last me I have a DELL all in one Wireless and have been having issues with it so I think Santa is bringing me a new one. I hope anyway :-)