Buy New Printer - Save Money!!

Once again, I found myself in need of replacement cartridges for my HP Inkjet color printer. Last time it happened, I had to pay $60 dollars for both the color and the black cartridges. While looking for the right ones, I noticed new inkjet printers available for less.

Using clearance pricing, I just purchased a new black/white laser printer for $99 on closeout. While spending money isn’t normally frugal behavior, I will explain why it is a good deal for me.

1. My current printer is a HP Deskjet with color printing. In order to work properly, it needs two cartridges, a black cartridge and a color cartridge. Together, they cost about $65 new. Near as I can tell from the specs, they should print approximately 790 pages at a cost of about 8 cents per page. Although I stretched it by using black in whenever possible, the cost of ink was a huge factor in total operating costs.
2. My new printer cost $99 (free shipping) and should print 2,000 pages at an approximate cost of 5 cents per page. Going forward, the replacement cartridges cost $65 and provide 2000 pages of ink. Approximate cost per page, 3cents!!!

I purchased my old printer 5 years ago because it was cheap and had good print quality (including color).

Today, I print more pages and realize that the printer cost is really irrelevant. The big mover in cost is price per page of print.

Note – I had to give up color printing, but it wasn’t a big loss to me. The only “color” printing I really “need” is photos. For those, I can have professionals do it for me.