Jessie, the Vanderbilt Wife, shared on her blog how they are saving on printer ink cartridges:
A few years ago, my husband and I found a great deal on a wireless Brother printer/fax/scanner combo (similar to this one). We’ve been pretty happy with it. I love the wireless, although it occasionally has some connectivity issues, and it’s so nice to have my own scanner for old pictures and contracts.
But when it came time that the issued ink ran out and we needed to buy new… my heart sunk. I worked at the college bookstore for 4 years and I remembered the steep prices of those tiny boxes of ink that hung behind the counter.
The whole reason we had basically stopped using a printer for years was the high cost of ink cartridges.
Noelle says
I’ve found you need to be careful when buying generic ink. We ruined a printer that way. Maybe it’s only HP printers that have an issue with this. I’m curious if anyone has successfully used ink refills with an HP printer.
Kim says
I’m paying $3 per replaceable cartridge for my Epson Workforce 610 Printer through CCS-Digital.com The cartridges for my printer hold double the ink. There’s a $7 flat shipping rate, so I try to get 1 year’s supply at a time. There’s a lot of information on the website. He builds in bonuses for repeat customers. I usually receive my shipment about one week after placing the order. Customer service is great! They have saved me so much money!!
LeahB says
Before buying a whole bunch of non-OEM (refilled, refurbished, generic, etc.) ink, it’s worth testing it in your printer first!
My new-ish HP all-in-one printer that senses how much ink is left absolutely freaks out when I use different ink. I would get non-stop “out of ink” or other error messages with every single print. We’re talking a whole computer screen full of error message windows. I’d have to get up, go to a different room where our wireless printer is located, and push a button with EVERY page. Never doing that again! Hopefully most printers don’t do this…I get it, HP wants you to only buy their ink!! 🙂
So to save money, I comparison-shop on a regular basis and get only HP brand ink. Sometimes on Amazon, sometimes at Sam’s club.
Brandette says
We did this just this last week. We have a Samsung laser printer and needed to replace the black toner cartridge soon. We last replaced it (a 5000 page yield) in 2012. So it lasted 2 years for us exactly, which seemed great to me since I print lots of coupons, but the cost was $115 the last time we bought. My heart sank when my husband informed me it was getting low and we would need to replace it soon.
He started doing some searching and found a non-OEM replacement cartridge on Amazon….for $24 including shipping! HUGE savings, and this new cartridge is double the page yield, it’s a 10,000 high-yield cartridge!! Here’s to hopefully 3-4 years without replacing it again!
Melanie says
This is crazy!! I have always hated when it’s time to buy printer cartridges. I have looked online to try to find cheaper prices but never had any luck. I just finally accepted that I would pay the high cost of print cartridges! I paid about $80 for my printer and if I buy both color and black ink, it’s $50. During my last purchases, I considered my printer by how much the cost would be to replace catridges! I just did a search on amazon, and found the black for $13.50 and the color for $15.50 and FREE shipping on both! Woot Woot! Ok, so my savings isn’t as much as yours but it is 50% off! Thanks for sharing this! I hope the cartridges work as well for me as they did for you!
FunMomma says
Another tip. Laser printers are much more efficient on the amount of ink used. We bought a Brother Laser printer on sale at Amazon years and years ago, and we have found we rarely need to replace the ink. I highly recommend!
(Ours is similar to this Brother HL2230 Monochrome Laser Printer on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL2230-Monochrome-Laser-Printer/dp/B004H1PB9I/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1403042759&sr=1-1. But ours of course doesn’t have wireless, and I think we paid just a little less. Replacement ink cartridges run between $30-60, depending on whether you get a non-OEM or a OEM.
Jessie Weaver says
Thank you so much for sharing this, Crystal!!