Happy Friday: Saving Money by Refilling Your Own Printer Ink
Sent from reader, Kimberly:
Hey Collin! I just wanted to share how I save money on ink. I got brave and decided to refill my own ink. At first the idea was daunting. I watched some how to videos on YouTube and with some practice, now I am pro. It costs me about $10 for a black ink refill kit and $13 for color on Amazon. The kits provide enough ink to refill the cartridges 4-7 times! That is hundreds of dollars of savings for me! I also found that if I hold the reset button on my printer for ten seconds it resets the ink levels and I don’t get a low ink warning. 🙂
HAPPY FRIDAY! 😀
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Reading this gives me the confidence to try refilling my empty ink containers. I love the idea of saving tons of money. Thank you for posting, Collin.
You can wait until they are empty. If they dry out, it won’t work. Refill as soon as you see the print is getting just alittle lighter. Don’t over fill. I’ve probably refilled well over 200. You can refill most cartiridges 4 or 5 times before they get where the bar codes won’t scan.
Hi, what brand of ink did you get from Amazon? I’ve been thinking about trying the DIY version.
sweet!! I’ve been out of ink for the longest time and was not looking forward to dropping tons of money on ink! thanks!
If you’re been out of ink a long time, then it won’t work. Your cartridge has probably dried up by now.
I’ve never bought prepackaged ink refill cartridges… Been refilling mine for years and have saved so much money doing so. I buy my bottles of black ink on eBay for around $3.00. They usually last me about 6 months!
I’m going to send this to my boyfriend, but I’m sure he’s to lazy to do it.
Unfortunately, I have a Dell printer which does not allow the refilling of the ink cartridges. They have codes on the cartridges that will cause an error if refilled.
Sounds like you need a new printer.
I just got a Brother Laser printer black only for $59.00. I refill was around $13 and it will print 2600 pages.
I have a Dell and been refilling my ink cartridges for 5-6 years.
Is there a trick to resetting a Dell?
What kind of printers do allow you to manually refill the ink? What brands have you had success with?
I have HP wireless and I refill my cartridges(I can also print from my sons IPOD) LOVE IT…. my sister also has a HP also refills her…
I tried refilling my HP and it was a disaster. It was probably 5 years ago so I don’t remember what I did but I wont ever try it again. I just buy HP cartridges on ebay. I can get a $40 cartridges for $16-$20 shipped. I have a pretty pricey printer (retail $250) so I cant chance ruining it. Its such an awesome printer especially compared to their cheap models that I have used in the past. When I have 8 empty cartridges, I sell them on ebay as empty virgin HP INK cartridges and I get $2.50 per cartridge.
What brand printers allow you to refill ink? What brands have you had success with?
Canon works great. But you can get past the error codes on most models. Just do a little research and see what works for other people. There are some great youtube videos.
I have a Canon. The “low ink” lights blink but that’s it. I know to refill when the prints get lighter. I do have to buy new ink cartridges probably after 3 or 4 refills and clean the inside of my printer more often.
What are the names of the refill kits that you use and know work?
I use a company called Disink on Amazon.
A friend of mine just told me that Costco does ink refill for about $7-$10. Has anyone had any experience with this?
I’ve used them multiple times to refill my hp ink! Works great!!
same as Melody said works great:-) and right now they have coupon for $2 off 🙂
Where can I find the coupon???
I have a friend that has only gotten theirs done at Costco and their prints always looked fine.
I refill my hp cartridges at Costco. It costs $40 to fill all four xl cartridges and they work great!
I have a Kodak 2500, I haven’t tired the refilling kit but when I was interested a few months ago I read that my ink cartridges have a memory chip in the back that tells the system if it is low on ink (even if it’s not). So even if I fill it with ink, the memory chip will tell the system it’s still out of ink.
I saw that walmart.com sells off brand ink cartridges for my printer for half the price and more cartridges. I was going to try them. Has anyone had experience with these?
Quick question but doesn’t Costco refill theses? If so, how much are they?
You should get a laser printer. My hp laser printer cost around 100$ when I got it 5 years ago. Being a avid couponer, ink can be such a hassle since you would have to buy new cartridges every 2-3 months. I’ve bought a new toner just this past summer after have my last one lasting for almost 5 years. I highly recommend getting a laser printer.
I refill my HP printer cartridges with cheap ink I get on ebay. I bought a huge bottle of black ink for $13.00 and it will probably refill 20 cartridges, maybe more. I have not had good luck refilling the color cartridges, those I just buy on ebay for way less then I would get at any store.
Our fax/printer combo was ruined from refills. Brother told us it ruined the internal parts which made it malfunction with an error code. Has anyone else experienced this? I would like to try again, but I don’t want to pay for another printer by ruining the one I have.
Thanks so much for the tip, can’t thank you enough:)
How can I refill toner? Or where is the best website to buy toner generic or non generic for good deals?
I don’t think you can refill toners as they don’t use liquid rather they use powder.
I have been refilling my HP cartridges for years with no issues with my printer malfunctioning. I have had the same printer for 7 years.
4-7 times?? I’ve used my ink more than 10 times and it’s not even 1/4 empty. This will last a while!!TIP: DO NOT USE THE PLUNGER THEY GIVE YOU!!! the needle part goes in the appropriate hole and a little at a time into the syringe and let it drip down into the cartridge. My husband learned the hard way and believe me he was lucky he was outside!!😀
I have done that for a long time, saved money but Lexmark does not like to be re filled. I have an HP and well i just recycle my cartariges and buy new ones. If you can re fill that would be awesome. I have not tried to re fill the HP, but this does work.
I refill mines I have a wireless Hp printer…I buy ink from ebay for about $2.80 shipped and I can refill my cartridges about 3-4 times
Norma, who do you buy your ink from on ebay?
I purchase from Comp and save..cheaper than in store but cannon won’t show ink level:(
I can somehow finally print coupons from coupons dot com App from my Iphone and Ipad onto my Brother wireless laser printer ! They must have fixed their software. The toner last easily 7-9 months for $10-$15 and the Brother printers are work dogs that keep on going and going.
Awesome. I’m going to go try this right now.
I found that I just don’t need color printing at all. Ever. So I switched to a laser printer and have cut my cost per page by 75%.
I recently found black and color refill kits normally 15+ on in the clearance section at Walgreens for 4.75 and 3.99 and refill mine ink also. Can’t beat that. Before that I was getting them filled at Frys electronics for 6.99 and sometimes they fill for free when advertised.