How to save money on printer ink

               If you are like most Americans, you are probably sick of spending ridiculous amounts of money on printer ink.  Fortunately; there are several different solutions to saving loads of money on printer ink.  The simplest solution only involves a few clicks of the mouse.
   Start by clicking to print your document. When the print dialog box opens you should see a button labeled options, settings or something similar.  Clicking on this will open another dialog box with a bunch of options. Here you will see an option labeled print quality(or something similar) Setting this to a lower than default value will save ink, and as a added benefit your document will print faster. If you are printing just text only in most cases you will notice little, if any difference if any in the print quality with the lower setting selected. Going above mid quality will not provide any noticeable improvement in print results. Keep in mind that this is true for documents that contain text only. For documents that are a mixture of text and images, it will be your best bet to select mid or default quality.  For photos, you will more than likely have to use the highest print quality level for acceptable results. Keep in mind that these are only guidelines, and results may vary with different printers. You may have to experiment around with these setting with your own printer for the best results.  As a general rule, using the maximum quality level for anything other than photo printing is wasting ink.  Additionally; though the use of the dialog box mentioned earlier, you can set your printer to print in gray scale only for documents that do not need to be printed in color.  This will save you money as color ink tends cost more than black, and it will also make your documents print faster.
           

 If adjusting your print quality is not an option for you there are ways you can save, money on the ink itself. There exist ink refill kits for people who are willing to attempt to refill ink cartridges themselves. Usually; you can refill a cartridge multiple times with one kit. With an ink refill kit you can refill your cartridge for a fraction of the price of a new name brand cartridge. For people that are not brave enough to take the plunge into attempting to refill their own cartridges, some businesses offer ink refill services, at a fraction of the cost of a new ink cartridge. You can also purchase generic equivalent ink cartridge.  These cartridges are generally recycled brand name cartridges that have been refilled in a factory. Printer manufactures will lead you to believe that these generic ink cartridges have only a small portion of the amount of ink that a typical name brand cartridge.   While; this may be true in some cases, it really depends on the brand.  Doing a little research, and reading product reviews can help determine which generic brand of ink is best.
               

If you find generic cartridges aren't filling your needs there is another thing that you can do to combat high ink prices. Shop around for price. Name brand ink cartridges can vary dramatically in price from one store to another. It’s best to try and check discount department stores, like Wal-Mart, Kmart, or other similar stores.  The printer market is current dominated by two manufactures, Lexmark and HP.  Keep this in mind when you are shopping around for prices. Finding ink for other brands of printers might be a little bit of a challenge as you may only find these at stores that specialize in selling office supply merchandise.  If you don't mind waiting a few days for your ink you can shop around for a lower price online.

                As a final resort you can replace your printer with a one that offers a lower cost per page.  However; this may only be cost effective for people that print large volumes of documents.  When shopping for printers, beware of inkless or thermal printers.  While these printers do not require ink, they do require specially coated paper. That being said, it is possible that the required paper could be cheaper than the ink. You may have to do a little bit of research to determine if these printers could save money for you.