How to Save Money on Printer Ink

I bought something in November that has changed my life.  It sounds dramatic, but I mean it.  I no longer have anxiety about printing things…in full color…as much as I want. Printable art for my walls?  Yes please!  Full color planners?  Yay!  Color meal plans and crochet patterns?  Yes and yes.

I used to hold myself back and if I had to print, I’d do 4 pages in one so that the print was so tiny I could barely read it.  And of course it was grayscale, draft quality.  We had previously purchased a printer from Costco, and made sure that it used the Costco refillable ink cartridges to try to save on printing costs.  Even then, with my crazy miserly printing habits, we were spending about $30 a month on ink.

Then in November, I bought a new printer.  My old one was working just fine. In fact, I sold it yesterday, from a Facebook Marketplace ad, to a grateful woman who had just bought a new pack of ink and opened it before her printer quit.  It was a win-win.

My new printer qualifies for instant ink. For $10 a month, I can print up to 300 FULL COLOR or black and white pages.  The printer is connected to wifi and tells HP when I’m running low on ink and they just send me a new cartridge at no additional charge.   I’m saving $20 a month, plus I never have to go on an emergency ink run and pay full price because the refill place can’t get it done in time.

If I go over my 300 pages (which I did last month) They will give me another 25 pages for just $1. Any unused pages will roll-over to the next month, so there’s no worry of waste.  They also send an envelope to mail back the used cartridges for recycling.

I can log in any time I’m curious about how many pages I’ve used, and check it out.  I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet.  If you use my link, you can try it for free!  PLUS if you buy a new printer that comes with a free trial of the instant ink, the offer is stackable with my free month link for you.  I started in November and won’t pay for ink until MAY!

You might already have a printer that qualifies, look for it here.  If not, these two printers are my favorites:

This one is an all in one printer with fax, scan, copy, and a top load document feeder.  It’s the one I bought and it makes very good quality prints.

This one is a little less expensive, without the automatic top feed option.

I hope this serves you!  I’m off to go print my planner pages and fit mama meal plans for next week (in full color!)

Disclaimer: This post contains amazon affiliate links.  If you choose to purchase anything through one of those links, I will earn a small commission.

I also have an affiliate with instant ink, so if you sign up for a free month with my link, I get a free month too.  As an instant ink customer, you will get an affiliate link to share with your friends as well.

 

 

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14 thoughts on “How to Save Money on Printer Ink

  1. Lindsey in OK says:

    That is really exciting, Angela! My printer is still hobbling along and I have been dreading having to replace it. Now I’m almost excited 😁

  2. Nicole says:

    Hold Up! $10 a month and they automatically send you a new one when you are running low and still just charge you $10 for the new cartridge ?
    Printing in our house is a constant frustration. Either we are out of ink…. or about to be and I have to have a really good reason to print in color and then the colors aren’t true because the ink is running out. All the rationalizations you make with yourself to use the printer.

    • Angela says:

      Nicole, YES! But it’s not $10 per cartridge. It’s $10 a month for ALL The cartridges you might use that month. After you reach your 300 page limit, it’s $1 for each 25 pages over (which is essentially the same price per page.) If you don’t use all 25 of the next $1’s worth, they roll-over to the next month. I’m a happy camper.

      • Anonymous says:

        Ok!! Is that affiliate link still active for you to receive a benefit?? Because seriously I will almost spend that amount on ink alone and I might as well buy a new printer and ink subscription. My husband is aggravated with the one we have anyway.

        Keep those deals coming! Appreciate you!
        Nicole

  3. Dawn Montague says:

    We tried the Instant Ink and it has been a nightmare! We have a business and the number of pages we print a month varies greatly. Why spend $15 plus the cost of the cartridges for 500 pages in a month when often you print no more than 50, and then in another month you print thousands. Be forewarned. This may NOT be for you. We can never count on an even charge – one month it’s $5 and another month over $100. I wish we had never gone with them, because their contract says that you are “renting” their ink (so how do you RENT a CONSUMABLE?), so if you have a bunch of cartridges left when you want to leave, you loose the money you spent on them and the software will NOT allow you to use them, even though you already paid for them. Also, if you go over your set number of pages, they charge at 2 or 3 times for each page you go over than if you had gone out and bought a regular ink cartridge at retail price. To me, this is just another way for companies to control us.

    • Angela says:

      Dawn, Thank you for sharing your experience. How long ago did you use them? My unused pages roll over to the next month and my page overages are billed at the same price per sheet as the ones included in my monthly order. It has saved us hundreds.

  4. Kari H. says:

    Hi there,

    I stumbled across your website today and WOW, some great content which I am looking forward to reading 🙂

    1 year later do you still use this printer + service and are you still very happy with it (cost and function)?

    Thank you!

    • Angela says:

      Kari, So sorry for the late reply. We do still use the printer and LOVE it! It costs so much less to print than our old printer and is better quality. We pay 9.99 a month, never run out of ink and if we don’t use all our allotted pages they bank them for us for future use. If we run out of banked pages, then they charge us in groups of 10 at the same price per page we were paying at the monthly rate. I highly recommend it.

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