Cheap Thrill- Save a Ton on Printer Ink Cartridges

Hi Everyone-

Thank you to those of you who supported me and attended the coupon class today. I really hope it helped you pick up some tips for saving money! As I said in class,  there are ways to save on everything you use on a regular basis. In honor of that,  here is my system for saving tons on printer cartridges.



1. Refill your own cartridges or have them refilled- you can use a cartridge a bunch of times if you just have it refilled instead of buying a new one. All you have to do is refill the cartridge and then disregard the error message your computer gives you telling  you the ink is low. Once you refill a cartridge at home you cannot reset the chip inside it to full, so the computer thinks its empty even if you just refilled it. The way to tell you are really on empty with refilled cartridges is to look at your print outs- if the text is light it is time for new ink.

There are two ways to refill an ink cartridge:

1. The first is to take it to a cartridge refill store - look in the phone book for one close to you. They will refill your cartridge and you can usually have them do it while you wait. If you choose to refill your cartridges this way you should expect to save about 50% over the price of a new cartridge.

2. The second way is to refill your cartridge at home on your own,  using an ink refill kit like the one I pictured at the top of this page. This kit can be purchased at Walgreen's for $14.99 for the black ink kit,  and $17.99 for the colored  ink kit. Of course, I save my "register rewards" and buy my kits with them so my net cost is usually nothing! The black ink kit gives you 6 vials of refill solution so you can refill your cartridges 6 times for $14.99 ( that is about $2.50 a refill! versus $29.99  for a new cartridge)  or less if you use Register Rewards. ( just a tip- I set my cartridges in the sink and refill them there, in case I spill or splash anything I can clean it up really easy).

When your printer can no longer read the cartridge at all (  it refuses to print at all)  - you can then go ahead and purchase a new one and start the cycle all over again. Just make sure you set your printer to clean itself and re do its alignment when you put in the new cartridge. 

At this point, you can take your dead cartridges to Staples where they have a Rewards Program that will pay for dead cartridges (plus they recycle them). The way you do this is:


1. Take your cartridge and rewards card to the register 
2. Have them scan the cartridge and your card. 
3. They will send you a coupon/ check good at Staples for $2.00 for every cartridge you recycle. 


Wait until they have items  on sale and use this coupon to buy paper or any other sale items you need. 





 *** If you work at an institution, like a school that simply tosses their ink cartridges and does not recycle -consider collecting them once a month and having Staples put them on a rewards card that you or the school or institution can then use to purchase much needed supplies at a deep discount.