5 Common Printer and Ink Mistakes that Cost You Money

If you think you know everything about saving money on your printers, inks and toners, think again; you could be saving more with your stash of discount coupons and a good sense of the bad printer habits that cost you unnecessary expenses.

Besides using discount coupons to get the biggest savings when buying your toner and ink cartridges from places like Total Discounts, what other alternatives do we have to cut down on unnecessary wastage?

The surprising thing is, most of these mistakes seem so minute – so insignificant. What most people don’t realize is how much costs they incur in the long run. Some of these bad habits can even cost you your printer!

Read on to know more about the 5 common printer and ink mistakes and learn about how to avoid them and the unnecessary expenses that come with them!


Printing without checking the quality of your images and documents.

A lot of people don’t realize it but the quality and purpose of their prints matter in saving up. Documents that do not need to be presented, or ones that do not need to be at the very least presentable should not be printed in high quality to avoid excessive use of ink. Images need to be printed in high quality and in the proper resolution to avoid getting low quality prints that only necessitate a costly repeat print. The most important principle about saving up is to avoid printing unnecessarily.


Overstocking on inks and toners.

Inks and toners, like most anything else in this world, come with a shelf life. While it is greatly tempting to hoard on new cartridges when shopping on sale or using coupons, it may not be the best idea. Inks and toners can dry up when left unused so unless you are absolutely certain about using them within six months, stocking up on them is just bad idea.


Buying refills from unreliable sources.

There are way too many ink and toner refillers in the market today that it is hard to distinguish good ones from bad ones. The risks that come with bogus ink refillers can range from low quality prints – ergo, more expensive and inefficient repeat printing, to damaging printers.


Unnecessary use of large, bold fonts.

Use your bolds sparingly, and stay within the usual, readable font size to avoid inefficient consumption of inks and toners. If you can, download the Ecofont, a font designed to be more ink-efficient and therefore environment-friendly. The Ecofont comes with a series of fonts that can suit your different printing needs.


Printing in color for black prints.

Color inks are usually more expensive than black inks, so unnecessarily printing in color will definitely take a toll on your printing budget. Sometimes, it’s hard to notice that the font colors are not in black but a slightly different, dark shade that it sends a message to the printer to use a combination of ink colors. That is why make sure to double- maybe even triple-check your printer settings to make sure that it is not on color-printing mode when printing black and white documents. 

Which of these common mistakes are you guilty of?