Have You Found Your Favorite Printer?!
Due to the large number of emails that I receive related to printers and ink, I thought it only appropriate to ask all of you to help me out with this topic of discussion. Although my printer works just fine, I am definitely not impressed with it enough to advertise and promote it on Hip2Save. So that brings me to the question at hand…do you have a printer that you absolutely love (or hate..it is always important to know what printers to avoid in the future). Here is an example of one of the emails that I recently received about this topic from reader, Amy…
I would love a post asking people what the best printers are out there. Since we are all frugal on this site, I would love to take into account purchase price, price of toner, and how long toner last. My boss lets me print some at work because we have an amount we are charged for regardless if we hit it (and we never do) but at home is a different story. I only print the ones I DEFINITELY want. This would just be a great way for everyone to help out each other when certain excellent printers go on sale. I love your site and thanks!
Do YOU have a favorite printer?! If so, please share the brand name, model number and about how much you paid for it. What do you like about this printer?
Where do you purchase your ink? Do you have any tips for snagging cheap ink that is not of poor quality?
For all you experienced couponers, how much do you spend on ink each month printing coupons (this is great information for new couponers who often wonder if they will spend more printing the coupons than what they will save using the coupons)?
If you have ideas, suggestions, feedback etc, let us know in the comment section below.
I have a Minolta Magicolor 2400W which is a laser color printer. I’ve replaced my toner recently, but I bought 5 years ago. The toner says black cartridge will print 5000 copies and color 1000 copies. I still have yet to replace the color cartridge. Cartridges are expensive ($75ish), but every 5 years – cannot beat that! i print all the time for home office, scouting, coupons, and for entertainment.
We used to have a Lexmark Z22, but ink replacement was $72. I used a black refill kit that I got on clearance at Walmart until I ran out of ink. Then my sister bought an Epson 3 in 1 at Target, reg price $80, on sale for $50.
We loved it so much that we bought an Epson Workforce 310 3 in 1 at Office Depot, reg price $130, on sale for $65. Uses 69 or 88 cartridges. $11 for black, $27 for 3 colors. Love being able to change just the cartridge that is needed. Scans really well, great printer. The Workforce holds two black cartridges, so you’re not running out so fast.
I bought this one for 29.99 definatley cheap but I am not sure how it functions, I haven’t gotten it yet.
https://www.shopping.hp.com/product/printer/Deskjet/1/storefronts/CB770A%2523B1H
I love the idea about costco and refilling my ink 9 bucks is a good price.
I have a canon pixma printer and would NOT get one again. The ink is $25 a cartridge and hard to refill. It sounds like most people are pleased with the HP. I’ll have to look into those.
WOW $25 a cartridge? What model do you have? I was bummed to find out that Walgreens does not refill Canon cartridges but we still get a good deal on ink at Staples or Office Max with their rewards programs, recycling credits, & overall decent prices. We have the Canon Pixma MX860 Wireless All in One Printer.
I have a cannon printer as well and although Walgreens does not refill them, a lot of other ink places do, like Cartridge World. They cost about $15 for black and $18 for color.
I have a very inexpensive HP Desk Jet D1520, I don’t even know if they have this model any more but has been a good work horse printing a ton of coupons of this site which I thank you for. The refills can be bought in the generic form from Office Depot and are really long lasting. I think the printer was around $30.00 when I bought it and it is the best I have had.
I have an HP desk jet 682. The ink refills are only $3 shipped on ebay! They are expired but they work just fine! It saves us TONS of money! It may not be the fastest or newest but it gets the job done!!
We recently purchased a Lexmark Laser Printer e260dn (got a great price on it, only 110). The toner that came with it, lasted 5 months and I bought a new toner from newegg.com (awesome place to shop btw! I buy all my computer parts from them). The toner there was about 30 dollars cheaper then anywhere else. Love newegg!
I love my printer and I love the Lexmark stands behind their products. About 6 months after I bought the printer it quit working. I spent about an hour on the phone with their tech department, and the printer wouldn’t go. They sent me out a new one next day delivery! Now that is what I call service!
I HAVE THE BEST PRINTER!!!
Back in 2006 my husband and I bought this on Black Friday at Staples and it was practically free after rebates.
It is a Samsung ML 2510 BLACK AND WHITE (NOT color) Laser Printer. It prints 20+ pages per minute and I don’t have to buy color cartridges. Because it is a laser, you get thousands more pages for your money. I typically get 3500 copies per toner and I purchase them on 4 ink jet dot com and they always have free shipping WYB $50+ so I order in lots of two, which last forever. They are $32.99. u promise dot com also gives great coupon codes for 10% and my last statement saved $7.72 for my Son’s college fund. With the coupon code it is less than $.01 per page I print!!! It makes it worth it to print coupons for $.25!!!
I just saw an an auction on ebay for $30 and on amazon refurbished ones for $40.
This printer has been FANTASTIC!
It sounds like you have a great printer. I was just wondering if you ever have problems with any coupons at any stores saying they will not accept b/c they are not in color and could have been copied. Thanks
I can’t speak for Tambry, but I have found that as long as the coupons scan that most cashiers will not give me grief over B/W coupons and I use the minimal ink settings for B/W.
I always print in B&W never had a problem!
I’ve personally never had a problem with b&w laser-printed coupons, but a friend of mine just did – she went through the self-check aisle at our local grocery store (GiantPA) and since coupons require an override, the person who was overseeing that area had to come over and approve the coupon. She said it looked copied. My friend said, no, just printed on a laser printer. But they refused it anyway, just because it might have been a copy. I think using them in regular aisles with lots of other coupons doesn’t usually generate any special attention or interest, but this is one reason I hate doing self checkout if I have any coupons to use – they seem to get even more closely scrutinized…
I have been couponing for a year now. In all of my transactions I can only recall a cashier mentioning it once, but I told them I have a black and white printer. If they have any questions they can ask the manager. I hope this recommendation helps some of you. So sorry to hear of all of the bad ink wasting horrible printers out there.
I always use a B&W laser printer and have never had a problem.
I love my HP 5610…it’s an all in one that I originally purchased to scan all my family’s photos on to CD. But it has really delivered since I started printing online coupons! Unlike other HP printers that I have had, I’ve never had a problem, not even a jam. Please note that I mainly use the HP5610 for printing coupons and photos, and have a laser for everything else. I maintain my printers it on a monthly basis because dust is a printer’s enemy.
I can use both the color and black inkjet cartridges* for approximately 3 months, or about 1.5 – 2.5 reams of paper (depending how I print on coupons.com in 1s 2s 3s). The color is HP22 and costs in the low $20s, or cheaper if you get store brands. You can use 3 different cartridges, HP27, HP56 & HP58 (*all different sizes), for the black. I usually buy the HP56 which lasts 6 – 8 months and costs around $30-$40.
What’s even better, I can usually get at about 4 refills per cartridge at Costco (remember these are HP and not store brand/refurbished). Costco only charges $7.99 for these cartridges and guarantees the refill. Unlike Walgreens, if Costco ruins your cartridge, they will replace it!
I’ve had my printer for 3 or 4 years…but they still make the HP5610 and I’ve seen them on sale for around $50.00. I love it so much, I gave my brother one for his birthday to print all his vacation photos from Alaska!
we have a HP photosmart C7280 all in one… love it.. so easy and works great every time!
I’ve been using the same Canon Pixma MP500 for about 5 years now, and I love it! It prints clean, crisp photos as well as being good for coupons, the settings allow me to print several different qualities (like fast, standard or high), and I can also scan with it. I get the ink (5 tanks) through Amazon.com on a Subscribe and Save so it costs a lot less than buying local, then I recycle it with Staples for $2 apiece.
I bought a basic HP D1660 just for coupons. I use the back side of recycled paper from my husband’s work & get my ink cartridges filled @ costco for $9.99. It really helps curb the cost of printing all those coupons 😉
I have two HP All In ONE, but for some reason I can never get them to print coupons. Someone told me you cant print coupons on them. Anyone Have any suggestions?
sounds like your computer settings and not the printer
I just purchased my HP all-in-one and haven’t printed anything but coupons yet.
I have an Epson CX 7400 all in one printer that I got on a really good sale at Toys R Us. It uses 4 cartridges (3 colors and 1 black) there are 2 sizes you can get moderate use and heavy use. Colors run about 12.99 and black 16.99 if you buy in a store, Office Depot is cheaper than staples and walmart. Online I am sure they are cheaper but I can never seem to get them in stock on 123inkjets. They last for a long time for me because I only print coupons I am definitely using and I defaulted my printer settings to black only and fast copy so it doesn’t use as much ink. I can go for months and months without needing my color ones changed. The good thing about Epson now is that Office Depot and Staples will give you credit for cartridges (they didn’t used to) the bad thing is that I have yet to find a place that will refill them. I know Walgreens doesn’t and the local ink refill store where I used to live doesn’t. I haven’t checked around here.
I have an Epson Nx515 and it’s great. Like other Epson’s, 4 different print cartridges. Easy to replace, last a long time and I buy them at great prices on eBay. Recommend 5*
Brother Laser HL-2140 – I have 3 of them. I also have the older model that has lasted for 5 years now with heavy printing.
I buy 4 pack toner on Ebay for $20. One toner refill will last thousands of prints.
About once every 2 years I have to buy a cartridge but I buy off brands. In my opinion this is the best printer on the market. I have two HP’s and they will go through one black cartridge per week. I got tired of paying the high price – even for off brand refills. We are very happy with the Brother printers both at home and work.
Darla,
I will join in and agree with you! My husband and I have (2) Brother’s 2040 and (1) Brother 2140 and they are excellent printers. I buy my laser cartridges from the SuperComputerStore and I also buy them when they have a really “cheap” deal on them and I buy several of them at a time! I usually get 5,000+ pages from each cartridge and usually only pay around $12.00 per cartridge. The quality of the prints are excellent and I have NEVER had a problem with anybody or any store not accepting a B/W coupon from me!!! Highly recommend any of the BRother Laser printers!!!!
Don’t you have to change out the DRUM on the brother printers?
I made the mistake of buying a samsung laser (on sale for $100) but then the catch is the TONER!!! It’s soooo expensive. The salesman suggested against buying a brother b/c of the high cost of the drum replacement but now I regret not going with the Brother. What’s your opinion?
The trick to extend the life of your toner for the HL-2140 is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPCGZZIdXyM
Yes Laury!
I did that months ago, I’m still on the same cartridge that I started with on this printer a year and a half ago! Brilliant! Problem free!
My husband and I got a Brother black and white printer that is the HL – 2170W. We are VERY happy with it. It uses toner cartridges, and this makes it cheaper in the long run. We got it in September of last year, and we still haven’t used the first cartridges. We choose to buy the Brother ink to make sure that it stays in better shape,but they do sell off brand that supposedly works just as well. Also, we have ours on the network, so I can print to it from anywhere in the house with any of the computers on the network.
We’ve been getting our ink cartridges from http://www.carrotink.com. It was highly recommended to us by a computer techie/geek friend and their prices are pretty decent.
I have an HP Deskjet D2530 that I bought at Target about two years ago for $40. It works great, and I love that it was so cheap. The refills are about $15. (The black is one refill and the colors are all together in one refill.) However, I don’t get a whole ton of prints from one cartridge. The package states that you get 300 prints from the black one and 200 from the color. In my experience, I’d guess that estimate might actually be a little high. My husband has a laser printer, buys refurbished toners for $30, and they last for a ton of copies (well into the thousands). I try to print from his printer whenever I can.
I have a Brother 845CW and I love it. I get cartridges at cartridge world or rapid refill and our local Attractions book (like the Entertainment book) has a free printer cartridge coupon in there- Yipee!
We bought our printer a couple of years ago, and it is THE BEST. It’s a Brother MFC-440CN. First of all, we bought it for less than $100 at the time (with a rebate). Second, it is networkable, so my laptop is not tethered to the printer. Third, it is also a scanner/copier/fax. 🙂
And here’s the most amazing part: We can use generic ink on it successfully (other printers we’ve used generic ink on have usually had major print problems within a year). It still prints great, 2+ years later. Once in a blue moon, the print quality might go down, but all we have to do is put it through a cleaning cycle, and it’s back to printing perfectly.
We buy our ink from places like abcink.com, and we pay $20 OR LESS for a four-pack of ink (we stock up when we can get them for $3 per color), which lasts a long time (the black is 2x the capacity of the OEM black), and trust me, I do lots and lots of coupon printing. 🙂 You know those ads under some of the printable coupons? They don’t really bother me much cuz our ink is so cheap. 🙂
The ONLY downside to using the generic ink is that the printer cannot determine accurately when the ink is actually out. So, every once in a while (but still very seldom), the printer will say an ink color is out when it is not. We just pull the ink cassette out, put it back in, and lie to the printer that we put in a new one, LOL. It goes through a cleaning cycle and clears the “out of ink” message. Similarly, when one color is out, we might only find out when we print something out and it’s obvious it’s out of that color ink. Fortunately, the generic ink cassettes are clear so you can see how much ink is actually in there, so there is very little waste (you don’t accidentally throw out a half full cassette), and since we are saving so much on ink, we are perfectly happy living with this once in a while inconvenience. 🙂
I have an HPJ4500 that I bought for about $40 at Sam’s Club a couple years ago. It is a 3 in 1 and I originally bought it because it was cheaper to buy the new printer than to buy refills for my old one. I have been very happy with this printer. The black cartridge comes actually in 2 sizes the regular size is about $14 at Target and the XL one is about $28 and I think the color one is about $28 as well. What I have been doing for ink is saving up empty cartridges as well as watching for cheap empty ones in lots on ebay. I take them 10 at a time to Staples and do the recycle program so that each month I get my $30 check and buy more ink. It has been working out great. I also watch for cartridges at garage sales, goodwill and the salvation army. I have been very luck in that I am able to get my ink very cheap. I also print my coupons in grayscale in order to save ink. Hope this helps.
I have the BEST BEST BEST printer ever. It’s an HP Color laser jet 3600n. I got it two years ago. I have not replaced the tonor yet, and I use it all.the.time! I’m a homeschooler and couponer. I print off TONS of things for my girls for school – games, worksheets, etc – almost all of which are tons of color! I also print off such things as birthday party invitations and homemade gift tags. I never shy away from printing off anything that I might like for school, and I don’t pass up many coupons. Giving my printer regular use (oh, and my girls print the pictures they create online from time to time as well), my ink levels are still almost half full!
If I remember correctly we got this one on sale for around $200, with the tonors in it.
I HIGHLY recommend this printer!
I use a Canon Pixma Wireless Printer. It sucks down the ink, but I print a lot of coupons too. Cartidges are about $10-$12 each at Walmart, with the black needed a replacement every six weeks or so. I do know of a new printer that HP is working on to save paper! It sounds awesome because, say you just print one coupon, the only paper it uses is the amount needed for that one coupon-No more wasting an entire page! I’m not sure if the printer will automatically cut or perforate the paper, but I definitely will check it out when it officially comes onto the market.
I have a Canon Pixma wireless printer too! I love it! It does suck down ink although I print a lot of coupons too. I like using Staples Rewards or Office Max Perks to recycle cartridges and use the money back for more ink 😉
I AM A MASS INTERNET COUPON PRINTER. WHEN I SAY MASS, I MEAN I CAN PRINT APPROXIMATELY AN ENTIRE REAM OF PAPER IN 10 DAYS – THREE HOURS SPENT EACH DAY LOOKING FOR AND PRINTING COUPONS.
TO PRINT OFF AN ENTIRE REAM OF COUPONS, I WILL DRAIN 3 HP INK CARTRIDGES. THE TRICK TO MAKING YOUR INK LAST LONGER – I HAVE LEARNED IN MY PAST 5 YEARS OF PRINTING COUPONS ONLINE – IS TO SET YOUR PRINTER TO PRINT IN GRAYSCALE, BLACK INK ONLY. A COUPLE MONTHS AGO, I BEGAN PRINTING IN FAST DRAFT, WHICH ALSO IS A MAJOR SAVER ON INK.
I HAVE 3 HP CARTRIDGES THAT I REFILL. I REFILL AT WALGREENS BECAUSE WHEN YOU REFILL THE FIRST TIME, THE BOX YOU GET YOUR CARTRIDGE BACK IN HAS A COUPON FOR 50% OFF YOUR NEXT REFILL. I HAVE REFILLED MY CURRENT BLACK CARTRIDGES 3X NOW AND THEY STILL ARE WORKING GREAT. THE TRICK IS TO WAIT AND EMPTY ALL THE CARTRIDGES, THEN IMMEDIATELY TAKE OUT OF PRINTER AND DROP THEM OFF TO BE REFILLED. WHEN I TAKE AN EMPTY OUT, I USE A LITTLE RUBBING ALCOHOL AND WIPE OFF THE INK TO PREVENT THE DRY INK FROM CLOGGING THE PORTS WHICH ARE USED TO REFILL THE INK CARTRIDGE. WORKS LIKE A CHARM. TO REFILL 3 CARTRIDGES AND USE A REAM OF PAPER, IT COSTS ME $20 EVERY 10 DAYS OR SO.
i like to shop and save money, but wow! 3 hours couponing every single day. how much time do you spend shopping each day? which stores are your favorites? do you spend a lot of time reading hip2save (and similar blogs)? good job hunting for deals.
I have a 3-4 year old HP Desk Jet printer which is OK and I got on Black Friday at Walmart for $30.
I get my cartridges refilled at Walgreens for $6 each as my refills come in a box with 50% coupon so I use it. Normally it is about $12/each.
I also have a Lexmark and experienced the free replacement! Honestly, I think the tech was wrong and I just gave my old one to my Mom. HOWEVER, I have a small DVD business and use a LOT of ink. I only go through Lexmark and use their recycle program. I usually get two free cartridges or more/yr. and have had too much trouble using re-filled cartridges. Mine is a Lexmark X6575 and scans AWESOME and the ink cartridges go a long way! I would definitely recommend.
I HATE HATE HATE my Epson NX300. Do not ever buy an Epson for couponing!!! It is great for pictures, but not for printing coupons. Here are several reasons why:
1. If one of the ink cartridges is “out” it won’t let you print anything. On my old printer I used to be able to run out the black until you couldn’t see it print anymore. This one still has ink in there, but since the computer chip says it is done the printer won’t print.
2. I have to go through ink like crazy because the fast draft prints out so light that the scanners can’t pick up the barcode. If you try to print only in black and white, it still uses the other colors.
3. It prints extremely slow.
4. You cannot get the ink refilled so it must be a new cartridge.
5. I have to carefully choose what I want to print. I learned that the hard way. At first I printed every coupon I thought I might use and the ink went out in a month. So now I have extended the ink for longer than a month, but I’m pretty tired of having to buy new ink.
6. Let me reiterate….DO NOT BUY EPSON!
And I need to add that you can’t trick the printer into using the old ink cartridge. If you try to shake it to get the rest of the ink out and put it back into the printer, the computer chip still tells the printer not to print and that the ink is out.
I would agree with this – we have an Epson Artisan 800 and it’s wonderful for graphics purposes, which is why my husband (the graphic artist) wanted it, but it takes lots of expensive inks that until very recently could be bought only from Epson (no generic versions available until last month) and as the previous poster said, once one of the cartridges is out, nothing prints. I used to have a Brother something and I loved that when the black was low, the printer would give me the option of mixing the other colors to create a faux black and stretch everything that much farther. So I would recommend against any of the newer Epson printers for couponing and regular text printing.
We had the same experience with a Lexmark that we bought a couple months ago. Once it decided that the ink was low it just stopped printing ……..so annoying! Plus I probably print about 20 coupons a week and we went through ink in like a week to two weeks! I’m convinced that you just need an old HP printer that is in good condition. I actually recently stopped using the Lexmark and I bought an old HP Officejet v40 at a garage sale for $5. This printer works great! It’s a little slow, but I like it slow so I can hit the cancel button as soon as the coupon prints – so I can avoid any of those ink eating ads from printing.
I have an HP Deskjet F4500 and LOVE it!!! I paid $80 for it and the ink cartridge is $13 for B/W and $13 for color at Walmart. I haven’t had it long but so far it is the best one I have had. It is also has the ablity to be set up to use it wireless which is GREAT b/c I have a laptop and can be in the livingroom and print coupons without having to get up and go to the other room to print. The set up on it was really easy too. My husband is an ITS computer person and it is the best one he has had for the money and the ink is not too expensive for the quality. Mainly I can’t say enough good things about it, great for money and good quality. Hope you all find what work for you. Happy couponing!!!!! 🙂
can you tell me how to get my hp desk jet to print in draft. i have tried to get it to print black cartridge only/draft, but the only way i can get black only is to take the color cartridge out. it still will print high quality and not draft. i have tried settings/printer preferences, still won’t work.
I have an Epson Stylus NX510 All In One Wireless printer which I set up on my desktop computer which runs Windows XP. I can change the settings on it that computer so that all the prints preview and then print in b/w, however whenever I try to print from my laptop which runs Windows 7 Home Premium even though I have my printer settings set up on that computer to do the same, it still prints a lot of coupons in color, especially Bricks which print 100% of the time in color. I have a feeling it has something to do with the version of Windows as well as IE 8 combined. I’ve Googled the problem but cannot find a solution so maybe I’ll try contacting Epson next to see what they suggest, but I really have a feeling it’s the Windows 7 program and waiting for a reply from Microsoft may be futile. I’ll give it a try though. Unfortunately with my printer I can’t take the color cartridges out to force it to print in b/w. It won’t work at all without them. That’s irritating when you’re out of only 1 of the 4 colors.
I have an HP1315v all-in-one printer. I loved it until I started printing coupons; in fact, this is the second one that I have owned. I have a laptop and also a PC and sometimes when I unplug the printer and hook into the other computer, it jams up. It also does not like the refilled cartridges and I don’t want to pay full price for HP ink. When I called tech support they basically said the problems were due to using the refills. I have used Walgreens ( they haven’t been doing the 50% off refill coupons on the boxes lately, though) and I think that might be part of the problem.
My basic complaints are: paper jams that lead to coupons getting “lost” and the queue stuck. The queue getting stuck if a) I send something to the printer before it is connected to the computer ( I stopped doing this at all!) or b) there is a problem with 1 document and I try to delete or restart it.
I am definitely looking for a wireless laser printer and will take some advice from previous posts!
I do not have a Costco card; does anyone know if Sam’s does refills and the price?
One tip that I have is that I enable a print preview for each document. It makes the printing process longer, but I can tell if a coupon is printing at the top, middle or bottom of the page. That way I can use those half sheets again if a document is printing from the top.
Last thing and sorry this is long– I have read on some blogs that you can do a sort of copy and past from a legitimate coupon ( maybe just pdfs I don’t know) into paint or something like that to get several coupons on 1 page. For example, the Rite Aid $5/$25 coupons that use up so much paper. Does anyone know how to do this???
It may be operator error, but let me just say that I have spent many evenings prior to my coupon trips leaving everything and I mean everything unplugged and turned off so the printer would reset itself if I could not delete the queue and start fresh!
Let me just say that I have gone through and dealt with many printers in my life. I am a college student which could be why. I have had a Lexmark and aside from the price of printing it worked fine. My mom who is self employed has a brother MFC that I bought her on clearance and it is good. It prints, it’s an all-in-one but ink is a bit expensive. You can’t print if even one cartridge is out, but you do only have to replace that one instead of all the colors. I have heard you can buy them online for less, we’ve never tried though. Then I got a crappy little inexpensive HP free with my computer purchase and that was THE DEVIL printer. I put up with it for two years! I wanted to cry every time I needed it. It got paper jams all the time! It wouldn’t print things if I sent them to it before having it plugged in AND the queue would never reset. EVER! I am getting a headache just trying to explain the headaches this printer caused me. However, I liked the cheap ink. And, I like my HP laptop, so this last time I bought another HP printer, but I upgraded! I got a 4 in 1 wireless inkjet on sale for 69.99 @ staples down from 99.99 and used a 15% off coupon. Since having it I have no problems at all. I love my printer. I love the wireless. A word to the wise though I know a lot of people with HP printers and they have never been able to use refilled cartridges. My only complaint, and it’s small, is it has to “think” for a bite before it prints. Nothing like my last one though. Not nearly.
Sorry that was long.
I have a brother MFC 5840CN.
Love it!
Like others, bought with a rebate 3-4 years ago. I think it was under $200 then.
It a multifunction so I use it for EVERYTHING!!!
I get generic refills on ebay. 4 of each color and 4 black for under $25. That usually last me a bit over a year with massive printing. I go through at least 1-2 reams of paper a month.
you should always look into getting your inkjets refilled. some places do it and for much cheaper than you can buy a new one! I work at walgreens and we refill them for fairly cheap and there are always in add coupons for refills but sometimes it does not work. there are other places like office max but i have no experience with them. another place that i like (if there is one by you) is cartridge world. they just take the inkjet and sell you one that is already refilled so no waiting and no chance that it does not fill correctly!
I love my HP printer! I just bought a new one this week (HP Deskjet F4480), it was on sale at HP for $59, free shipping and I used a coupon code to save $10 so my total was $53. The great thing about HP is that you can change it to print black ink only on fast draft and it saves tons of ink. I print tons of coupons so I have to replace my ink cartridge every 2-3 months and they cost about $14 at amazon. I have not shopped around much yet since this new printer takes a different cartridge than my old one did. I would say saving 50% or more a week on things that we buy is well worth the money I spend on ink.
I forgot to add that it is wireless and I have had no trouble connecting our laptops or other desktops to it.
Could you please tell me which print cartridge your printer uses. I have a all in one HP Deskjet. It uses HP60 and Walgreens does not refill this particular cartridge. Also, i cannot get it to print black ink only(just have to take the color cartridge out). i have set printing preferences and it still prints high quality. Someone suggested it is my computer, not the printer.
This printer uses black 60 & color 60 as well. Under printing preferences I changed it to print quality = fast draft, color options = print in grayscale, black only. Make sure to apply the changes then click ok. If you are sharing with another desktop or laptop you have to make the same changes in each computer too. I do not use refilled cartridges normally I buy them at Office Depot, Amazon or on Ebay.
I have an HP2410 PhotoSmart All In ONE. I have had it for 10 years and it still works great! I got it at a Black Friday sale for about $100.
Inks run around $30 but last a VERY long time. I have my printer settings default to print B&W and draft quality so I rarely change color ink. Never had a problem w/ cashiers accepting Qs b/c they can still see the dots or watermark (photocopies don’t show this)
I do work deals on ink by saving cartridges, waiting for Staples rewards to arrive, then using a competitor coupon so it’s not much OOP. I have also been lucky to score lots of cheap ink thru new office store opening sales. I DO NOT use recycled ink> I used to run a computer lab & I am not willing to risk it exploding inside the printer. It DOES happen!!!
I LOVE my Brother HL 2170 wireless laser printer. I had 2 HP printers that always seemed to jam. You would have to clear out all the print jobs to get it going again. I paid about $40 from Office Depot after instant rebate. The cartridges run about $50 and last FOREVER! I haven’t had to dump any print jobs! I lost a ton of great coupons with my HP! I highly recommend this printer!
That is the printer I have and I love it also! I just thought I would let you know you can get the cartridges on Inksell.com – 2 for 58.00 and free shipping. I did that and have been using them for over a year and I do tons of copies:)
I have an epson NX300 I got from Fry’s electronics for $60. I got a ciss(continuous ink supply sytem) off ebay plus refill inks for $30. now when I need refills I just use the syringe it came with and fill up the ciss. when I need to replace the ink I can get a bundle of all 4 colors for $12. these refills are suggested to last over a year! best small investment ever!
I really love our printer. It’s an HP Laser Jet P2015. It’s about 4 years old and has been awesome. It’s a black and white printer which is fine with me because I get my color copies printed other places because they look so much better. We have never had to replace the ink cartridge. I’m telling you…never and it’s 4 years old! I recently bought a new cartridge because our cartridge was running low on ink and it the generic cartridge at Office Max cost around $70 which is a lot. However, I went home, took our cartridge out of our printer, put it in a grocery sack, shook it, and put it back in and it’s still working great. I’m going to keep doing that until it dies. Sure, the cartridges are a lot, but we’ve never had to replace it before and we print a lot of stuff. My husband is a student and he prints tons of assignments and I print tons of coupons. Hope this helps!
I have had 2 Kodak printers in the last 2.5 years.
Not worth it for heavy printing.
The ink cart. are only 9 for the black and 13 I think for the color. The problem is you have to have both full and I never printed in color and my color always ran out.
They both just stopped working.
For those with toner cartridges, don’t forget you can put a piece of tape over the little windows on the side and get a lot more prints!
Brother HL-2170W Series Printer. It is a laser printer (wireless). I got it at Stapes for about 100.00. I order the toner cartridges from Inksell.com and get 2 cartridges for 56.00 and each cartridge does about 2000 copies. I never print coupons in color – it just costs too much and I have never had someone question them when I print in black and white.
I have this printer too and absolutely love it!!!
The trick to extend the life of your toner for this printer is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPCGZZIdXyM
While this may not work with coupon printing, for other print jobs I use Garamond font in a small size. I usually copy your info for each drug store for the upcoming week into a Microsoft Word document and print it and then at my leisure (LOL) go thru it and mark which items I am interested in and then gather up the coupons for that store. This does take a bit of ink but have read that Garamond font takes less ink than other fonts.
My hubs and I got a Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless All-In-One office Printer a few months ago. It’s great…I mean we do go through ink (I print a lot of coupons) but we do recycle our cartridges at the store (to get money back) & the ink price is not too bad. PLUS it’s individual cartridges so no wasting ink.,.we just change them as the colors run out…(1 big black one, 1 small black one, 1 small pink, 1 small yellow, & 1 small blue) We were able to get this $200 printer at Staples on sale plus instant rebates so we paid only $70 for it! I LOVE the fact that it is wireless; we have our desktop and both laptops set up to be able to print from it. 🙂
I have had 3 HP all in one printers over the last 10 years. They all still work, but I have broken parts of them, so upgraded.
I like how common the ink cartridges are and I can buy them anywhere. My newest HP Photosmart C4650 all in one is so dummy proof I don’t think I will ever break it. The display tells me what steps to go through to add ink, calibrate and clear paper jams. I can skip steps if I want. Remember when it would print a test page every time you turned it on? Not this one, just press the X.
I bought mine from HSN a Lexmark Wireless Photo Printer, Copier, Scanner and fax. I LOVE it and would not want anything else.
Invest in a good laserjet printer. I have not had to change my cartridge out in over a year and it is still going strong.
My favorite printer is my newest one which is: Epson Workforce 610 (Print, Copy, Scan, Fax). I only paid $49.99 for it, but I believe it retails now for $149.99-$199.99. I traded in my old printer when Staples had a promo going on to get this one. I made sure I researched printers before buying it, to ensure that I wasn’t paying too much on ink. I pay about $4 per cartridge. My favorite about this one, is that each color cartridge is separate (rather than all-in-one). So, if my colors are running low, I don’t have to replace all 3 at once if I don’t have to. I print in all black and white (unless color is needed). I haven’t had to replace my color cartridges yet, which is good considering I’ve had it for over 6 months. I insert a new black cartridge about every month to every month and a half (and I print a lot of coupons). With school papers and everything else, I probably replace every month. But considering I only pay around $4 for a cartridge and then recycle them at Staples, it’s not a bad deal.
It prints pretty fast (I would say fairly comparable to laser – although not AS fast). It’s wireless. I typically buy ink through places like inkwow.com, inkfarm.com, 123inkjets.com, inkjetsuperstore.com, etc. and search coupons through RetailMeNot.
Hey Collin…My friend recently shared with me that you can get ink refills at Costco for 7.99. When I was there recently, I noticed that they now advertise it at the photo booth. You just take in your old cartridge and they fill it right there! I have yet to try it, but my friend loves it!
I’ve had HP and Lexmark over the past 15 years and hated them. I have a Canon photocopier/printer now, it uses toner instead of ink. I’ve only had to replace the toner cartridge once in the past 3 years, and I use my copier/printer a LOT for home schooling my 5 children. (It’s black and white only…if I ever wanted to print in color, I would buy a separate photo printer and plug it in for photos only.)
HP 4-in-one machine, I got a few years ago and love it. I also have the same machine at my office, so I order the ink and take one for myself. Most of the time I print from the Epson R280 at work.
I have a HP and I love it for crafty stuff, but it sucks ink. I hear that Kodak has the cheapest ink. Kodak is the brand that I had picked out for my mother-in-law.
I was also going to go with Kodak until I read tons of reveiws on them. The ink is cheaper but the color ink drains even when you are printing in black only and they won’t print unless you have ink in both cartridges. Just a heads up I don’t have personal experience with Kodak just the reviews I read.
In February, I bought a new printer specifically to try to save money on ink. My Lexmark was OK, but it only used one ink cartridge for both color and black ink. And they were expensive. I was spending close to $300 a year on ink. I figured if I got a printer that used both a black cartridge and a color cartridge, I could save money by printing my coupons in black only. And I wanted a cheaper ink cartridge. I found what I was looking for in the Kodak all-in-one. I paid $95.01 at Walmart for it. The replacement cartridges are $10.97 for black and $15.97 for color. And they last longer than the Lexmark cartridges did. It prints great, and I’m definitely saving money.
First and foremost… anyone doing coupon printing MUST HAVE a black and white laser printer (not color). There is no “if, ands, or buts” on this. If you want printing to be cost effective, this is the biggest bang for the buck. The drawback is that because your coupons will be B&W, you may periodically encounter someone that thinks you have a photocopy. When this happens to me, which is very rare by the way, I tell them that I am using a B&W laser printer because it is the cheapest for printing. If they still persist that my coupon is a photocopy, then I tell them to go to their office and make a copy of my coupon and compare the two. If they still persist, I ask for a manager. That shuts them up.
I have a Brother HL-1440 (not made anymore), which technically yields about 6,000 pages @ 5% coverage. Compare that to a color ink printer, and it is a no brainer. Brother and Samsung both make low cost B&W laser printers that can be found for ~$50. Right now you can get a remanufactured Bother 2170-W (B&W laser wireless) printer at Staples for ~$45+tax after using a $25 off $75 coupon. The reman 2140 is ~$25 because it is “wired”. I have had my HL-1440 printer since 2003, replaced the toner cartridge 2 times at about $40 each time, and then recently I bought a refill kit from eBay for $10. BTW, at the time I purchased this printer, when all was said and done, it was free and I got paid to take it away.
While I love the Hip2Save website for Target Walgreens, Walmart, etc, for me, nothing beats FatWallet and SlickDeals for their hot deals on electronics, furniture, tools, and all of the other things.
I just have a quick question. The Walmart near our home has always been extremely good at taking just about every coupon I’ve used there. They usually don’t question the validity of a coupon based on it’s appearance and only rejects it if their scanner won’t pick it up. If I use a draft setting on my printer, and Epson Stylus NX510, their scanner won’t work on it and it then rejects it. Do your coupons only look “copied” or does it actually affect the bars for scanning like my draft copy does?