With the rise in working from home due to the pandemic, many people now rely on their home offices and have seen an increase in their spending on office supplies. Printing is especially expensive, with ink cartridges costing a fortune to replace. If you’re despairing at the cost of your printing needs, then here are five tips on how to save money on printing and reduce the cost of running your home office.

Use compatible cartridges:

It’s no secret that ink cartridges can be eye-wateringly expensive, and if you’re printing a lot of documents, then the cost of regularly replacing these cartridges can really start to add up. However, you may be overspending by buying only branded ink cartridges straight from your printer manufacturer (OEM cartridges) when you could be opting for cheaper compatible cartridges instead. Retailers such as printerinks provide inexpensive compatible cartridges for a wide range of printer brands, so you can replenish your cartridges without breaking the bank.

Buy cheaper paper:

As well as saving money on ink cartridges, you could also save money on the other key item that your printer needs – paper. Instead of buying expensive paper from office supply shops, you should consider buying cheap brochure printing from supermarkets or online. Additionally, buying supplies in bulk could save you a lot of money in the long run, and you could do this with both paper and ink cartridges.

Print things in black and white:

Often, printing documents in colour isn’t strictly necessary, even if you think it will be more aesthetically pleasing. For graphs and charts, grayscale can work just fine, and for text, there’s no need to splash out on coloured ink to make a statement. You can find a range of eco-friendly fonts that have little holes in each letter, which will help you save on ink costs and be less wasteful.

Consider which printer to buy:

Depending on how much you print, buying a more expensive printer could actually help you save more money over time. Cheaper printers may look like a great deal, but their page yield may be very low, meaning that their cartridges print fewer pages before running out. Therefore, if you print a lot of documents, a better printer with a higher page yield may be the best option for you. If you don’t print often, it may be better for you to go for a cheaper option, or you could even buy a cheap black-and-white printer if you don’t really need to print anything in colour.

Decide if you need to print at all:

If you already don’t print things very often, it may be worth considering if you need to print at all. Nowadays, many documents can just stay online due to the use of PDFs, shared documents and online document signing. Keeping everything on your computer could also be better for the environment as you won’t need to use any paper or buy any printing supplies.

Printing doesn’t have to cost a fortune. By carefully considering your supplies and the necessity of printing, you could save a lot of money on printing, making your home office much more efficient to run.