Notebooking on a Budget

How to Refill Your Ink Cartridges (Photo credit: Castle Ink Cartridges)

Notebooking can be expensive if you don't have the right printer. Now I'm not saying go out and buy a new printer. I'm saying to utilize the current printer you do have. Check into refill kits, for most printers these kits can cost about $10 per kit and get about 5 to 6 refills. Most likely the more you spent for your printer it will cost more for your refill kit. Even laser printers have a refill kit, but they do cost more.

Whether a laser or inkjet printer check eBay for your refill kit. Then check for refill instructions to use the refill kit because some kits don’t come with the instructions from eBay. “Refill Instructions For Most Inkjet Cartridges” will provide the instructions if it’s listed.

The next step from the instructions would be, how much is needed to refill your cartridge. This is important to know because this will help you know how much you will get with each refill kit. For example, a Cannon MP280 inkjet printer needs 5ML to refill for color and 15ML for black. The refill includes 30ML for color and 30ML for black. So, for color you can refill 6 times and 2 times for black. You would need to buy 2 more kits for black to equal it out with color.

The total cost for this is $30 with eBay and that’s 6 refills for both. Whereas, replacing the cartridges is $49.99 in store for one replacement. For the price of 2 replacements from the store, I can use the kits for 12 refills and save $40. This $40 dollars can be used to buy color printing paper or other needs for homeschooling.

For those who don’t have a printer that allows refill kits either refer to “Toner Refill Instructions” for your refill kit. There you will find  instructions for many laser printers. You can still get your toner refill kit from eBay as well.

I found that getting my cartridge refilled locally only saved me $4 each. So, I knew there was a way for me to save even more. I started searching for a new printer, but found that it just gave me a headache. I have my children doing Lapbooking, Notebooking, file folder games, and worksheets. So, I needed another way because I was spending $100 or more in ink cartridges, library, and using family members printers. That was getting out of hand, the stress alone of worrying about keeping the printing to a minimum. Now, I don’t have to worry about that. However, I do monitor the printing because of the environment when it comes to wasting paper and killing trees. I only use recycled paper only, but that too is an issue because our library didn’t use that kind of paper. I felt guilty printing off it and now I’m glad that’s over.