Last Updated on December 28, 2020 by HodgePodgeDays
When I started working from home I set up a little office in the smallest bedroom and made it my own space. Sure, it’s a cluttered mess, but it’s got almost everything I need in it to get me through the working day. Comfy chair, decent sized desk, 3 million packs of post-it notes and my trusty printer.
We are keen crafters and as a result we do quite a lot of printing at home. Recently we’ve been decorating t-shirts for Halloween, so hot off the printer came the templates for that which needed cutting out. Almost every other day the printer is churning out something creative for us to dabble with.
When it comes to the boy, we do quite a lot of extra work with him at home around the topics he’s studying at school. So out comes the printer for that. My printer, which was when I bought it, something of an afterthought as I suspected would sit and gather dust, well, it probably works harder than I do.
It’s never cheap to run a printer at home. The printers themselves are usually fairly cheap, but the cost of paper and ink soon add up.
It’s useful to look at the cost per page when buying ink. It’s not an exact science but they usually have this price displayed and I find that helpful. For my canon ink 540 541 the multipack is a reasonable 9.01p per page. Knowing how much each page costs me to print also stops me from going wild and printing half a rainforest when there’s no need either.
The other expenses involved in running the printer are electricity and paper costs. Electricity is easily solved by just turning it off when it’s not in use. Paper can be bought cheaply, but you often get what you pay for. Cheap printing paper is fine for quick print outs, but for some of my craft endeavours card is often required. I usually visit my local stationers and pick up small-ish quantities of the card I need and store them flat in a dry place until needed. This stops them warping.
If you want to cut the cost of your home printer; turn it off when not in use; shop around for the right paper and card for your needs and buy your ink from a reputable company who offer good discounts.