How To Save Money on Home Office Printing

You don’t need us to tell you that working from home has become an increasingly popular practice; the chances are you that you already do it. Whether putting the finishing touches on an important document for work, spending a day working from home (which many offices are promoting as part of their efforts to go green) or even running a fully-fledged home business, the line between home and work is getting increasingly blurred.

All of which has led to the creation of a brand new room in the home, the home office. An evolution of the traditional study, the average home office is essentially a work desk in home, with a computer, telephone and printer - basically everything that allows you to work as you would in an office, without the commute.

Of course, as you’re not working in the office, you won’t benefit from office supplies (unless you have a particularly generous boss). This means you’re responsible for the cost of items such as ink cartridges and these costs can soon mount up. However, there are a number of ways you can ‘print smarter’ at home to cut costs and ensure that working from home isn’t eating a significant chunk of your pay packet or profits!

Choose The Right Printer For You

It seems like an obvious piece of advice, but it’s still something that gets ignored on an alarming basis. Despite what some printer manufacturers might try and tell you, there is no single ‘right’ printer for everyone. Instead, choosing the right printer for you comes down to what you need to use your printer for and your printing budget.

If you’re work for or run a business that requires you print a lot of images, for example, you’ll want to invest in a specialist photo printer for the best results. If you print a lot of text-only documents, then a speedy laser printer is going to be your best bet. Assess your individual circumstances and buy based on them.

Features can add quite a lot onto the cost of a printer; wi-fi printing, live previews, integrated copy and scan functions and so on. If you’re not going to use half the features of a particular printer, then it may be best to look elsewhere for a printer more fitting of your needs.

If you’re on a particularly tight budget, then it will probably be tempting to go for one of many sub-£50 printers on the market. However, these often represent a false economy as the cost of print cartridges will often be higher to ensure the manufacturer still makes a profit. Think long term rather than short term costs, which brings us neatly onto...

Manage Your Supplies Efficiently

Unfortunately, you won’t be buying nearly the same amount of business supplies as an actual office for your home office, which means you won’t be able to take advantage of offers associated with buying in bulk (unless you have a lot of spare upfront cash). However, you can still make big savings on your supplies.

First of all, you need to try and make an accurate assessment of how much you’re using per month. Based on this, you can calculate an average per month cost figure and start working on ways to cut back. If you’re using OEM cartridges, for example, then switch to remanufactured toner cartridges or recycle your ink cartridges; the quality is just as good at a fraction of the cost.

Paper-wise, it largely depends on what you use your printer for. If you’re mainly printing internal documents then there’s nothing wrong with going for the cheapest paper available. For anything that requires high quality paper - or specialist photo paper - then it’s worth shopping around for any particularly good offers or deals rather than sticking to one particular brand.

Print Smarter

Of course, you can actually limit the amount of supplies you use by simply printing smarter. Use draft mode for informal documents; print double-sided if your printer has the capability; print exclusively in monochrome or simply don’t print at all and make use of digital sharing methods such as email and cloud sharing. All of these methods will save you a lot of money, as well as making your home office environmentally-friendly!

Cartridge World specialises in cost-effective compatible and recycled printer cartridges, so if you’re looking to cut your printing costs, pop into your local store.

Image Credit: Sean MacEntee