Printer {Linky Party}

Dana from the wonderful A Place to Share is hosting a printer linky party so I thought I'd join in. Here's the printer we have:

It's an HP D1500 or, as I like to refer to it, "the little printer that could". I bought it at Walmart and it has served me well for over two years now. Not going to lie, the main reason we chose it was its price {less than $30} along with the relatively inexpensive cost of ink cartridges that it uses. I believe new black cartridges run around $14 and color cartridges are less than $20. However, I hardly ever buy them new as I get mine refilled at Cartridge World. By bringing in my old cartridges, I never pay over $9 for black cartridges and $12 for color cartridges. I've never had any trouble with their ink refills either.

We actually don't run through them too often at home mainly because I try to do most of my school-related printing in my classroom. My school printer may be a big ol' dinosaur, but I make those cartridges last forever by using a little tip I picked up in one of the teaching interims I did before I got my job. {In fact, I used one black cartridge all year at school, but printed a TON of stuff!}

If you select "print as draft" and choose black ink as much as possible, it will really maximize the life of your ink cartridge. I've never had a problem with the quality although I'm sure you wouldn't want to print photos or something really nice that way. However, it works great for blog printables to run copies from. I rarely ever print anything without selecting those options.

Wow, never thought I'd write that much about a printer or ink. Happy printing, y'all!