The home printer is a wonderful thing. In a very short space of time we have gone from there being no home printers at all, to most homes having a printer capable of high quality documents, pictures and photographs.

The printing capabilities we now have at home are pretty amazing when you stop and think about it. Even more amazing than this though are the extremely low prices that you can buy a brand new printer at these days. There is however a catch (Isn't there always!).

Printer manufacturers use a very clever marketing model that can be seen in with many other products such as razors and cell phones. They will actually sell you the printer at a loss just so that they can then sell you ink cartridges at over inflated prices. That's why if you buy the manufacturers own ink cartridges you will probably be spending $20-30 for a replacement. They make a huge amount of profit on these ink cartridge replacements, which is why they spend so much time and money trying to convince you to buy their ink cartridges. Well we do not think this is fair, so that is why we are going to tell you how you can beat the big manufacturers and save yourself a lot of money at the same time!

There our a few simple things you should do first in order to make the most of your printer ink cartridges.

Always make sure your printer options are set to draft print until you get the printing your final document.

Always choose black and white print if your printing contains no colors, and have black and white printing set for any of your draft documents until you are ready to print the color version.

Of course the ink will not last for ever even using those two handy hints, so read on and learn how to save money when you have to buy replacement ink cartridges.

Purchase a non-branded compatible inkjet printer cartridge. Many reputable manufactures now make printer ink cartridges, but sell them at much lower prices than if you bought the printer manufacturers own ink. Do not worry about lower quality though as these ink cartridges still meet the same standards.

You can purchase a remanufactured ink cartridge. These will have been used ink cartridges collected by a third party company and then refilled and tested. Again these are cheap and still high quality.

It is now possible to purchase ink refill kits that you can use to refill your own printer cartridges. It is possible to refill one ink cartridge around ten times. It is a fairly easy process to do, the only thing you should try and do is refill before all the ink has been used and the ink cartridge has dried out. With the refill kits being so cheap this can be another great way to save money. As well as being cheap it is also good for the environment because if we recycle our existing ink cartridges less ink cartridges need to be produced and then dumped in landfill sites.

Buy in bulk. You will find deals with many online stores if you purchase several printer ink cartridges at a time.

Hopefully these tips have given you some help. It is best to look online for all your ink cartridge requirements, as prices tend to be cheapest.

About the author:

Steve Jones now writes articles for http://www.a1printerink.com