Guest Post: Money Saving Tips on Printing Coupons

Guest Post by Michelle at Frugal and Thrifty Mama.

• We all know it can get expensive rather quickly buying ink cartridges. We have a Dell printer and I was buying our cartridges directly through Dell. I always cringed whenever it was time to buy more ink. So I was excited when I discovered I could by remanufactured cartridges through 4inkjets. I can save 30% by ordering my cartridges through them rather than Dell. So far I have been pleased by the quality of printing and the cartridges are lasting just as long as they were when I got them through Dell.
• Print your coupons in black and white. In your printer settings you should be able to choose to print color images in black and white.
• When printing some coupons, the coupon will print with a picture following the coupon. When this happens, I normally wait until I see the entire coupon has printed then I quickly press the "stop" button on our printer. You'll save alot of ink this way! Unfortunately there are a few coupons that the picture prints out before the coupon and there's no way to avoid that.
• To save on paper, buy it at Staples when they have a good sale. In the 3 months I've been "couponing" I've seen 2 different times that they've had a deal when you bought a ream of paper you could get 90%-100% of your money back via a rebate. When I run across a deal like this I'll be sure to let you know.

Thanks Michelle!
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Several ways that I have found to save in addition to these:

• Get your ink cartridges refilled at Walgreens. They can't do quite all cartridges but our is one that they can and I have been pleased with the way that they print. Cost is $15 for black or color.
  
• Print your coupons on the back sides of already used paper. Just be sure that there is no personal information on the back side of the coupon!
  
• Set your printer to the "quick print" option if it has one. That is the only way I ever print with my printer and my sister just informed me that it looks better than what her printer does on the regular setting. As long as the bar code is clear enough that it scans that is all that really matters.