More ways to cut your printing costs

After talking about how you can halve your printing paper costs yeaterday, I got to thinking about another way that you can save money on your printer.

Have you ever noticed that the cost of new printers is really cheap? Really, printers are dirt cheap - but when you check out the prices for the new ink cartridges, they can easily cost more than half the price of the printer itself! And you'll generally find a "warning" that you must replace empty ink cartridges with "genuine" new ink cartridges. The "warning" usually goes along the lines of "failure to replace ink cartridges with genuine new ink cartridges may invalidate your warranty". This is language that is meant to scare you into buying only "genuine" replacement ink cartridges. And who provides the "genuine" replacement ink cartridges? The printer company of course! And the implication is that if you don't buy your new replacement ink cartridges from them, your printer might go wrong, and you would have invalidated your warranty.

The reality, of course, is that there are lots of compatible cartridges which are not made by the printer company, and they are cheaper.Take my printer as an example - a "genuine" new black ink cartridge will cost me £9, and a "genuine" new colour ink cartridge will cost me £18. That makes £27 together if I buy two new cartridges at the same time.

If I shop around though, I can buy a pair of cartridges (black and colour) for £22 - a saving of £5.

With a bit more searching, I can buy black ink cartridges for as little as £5 each or a pack of 3 for £10, meaning I can save between £5 and £7.66 per cartridge.

I can also buy colour cartridges for prices between £5 each and £10 each, saving me between £8 and £13 on the price of the "genuine" article.

You have to bear in mind though, that these are internet prices, so there is a delay of a day or two between ordering and receiving.

My favourite option is not to buy a new cartridge at all. I prefer to take my empty ink cartridge to a local cartridge refiller. I use Cartridge World, and if you live in the UK, there is probably one near you - you can find the one closest to you by checking www.cartridgeworld.org. But even if you don't live in the UK, there is probably an ink cartridge refiller near you. I pay £4 to get a black cartridge refilled, and £6 for a colour cartridge. It takes a matter of a few minutes to do the refill, and then I can put it in my printer straightaway. That comes to £10 for the pair, which means I'm paying only about a third of the cost of buying the "genuine" article.

Despite the dire "warning" of invalidating my warranty, I have never had any problems with these ink cartridges, either refilled ones or the unofficial ones.

So next time you need a new ink cartridge, why not try a compatible copy rather than a "genuine", or even have your "genuine" cartridge refilled for a fraction of the cost of a new one.