Frugality: Tips for Saving Money on Printing Coupons

Printable coupons can be an awesome source for great coupons, but how much do you really save if you go through ink and paper quickly? It's even worse if you have a printer that has expensive cartridges! Here are some helpful ways to cut those costs down and increase your savings.

• Set your printer default to black and white to save on the colored ink.
• Make sure your printer setting is on the most economical. (Some have an economy setting, or you can choose a lower quality, which uses less ink)
• Use the backs and scraps of paper. If you are only going to print one coupon you can often use a half sheet from when you printed another coupon. Use the backs of coupons you didn't use as well.
• Use the backs of junk mail. Did you get a letter from a tax service wanting you to use their service? Use the back to print coupons. You can also use the back of children's past years school work, old papers from work, really anything that has print on one side, can be printed on the other. Of course one bit of warning is to not use anything that has personal information like SSN. Shred that. You can also ask people/businesses for this kind of paper. A lot of times it just ends in a box for recycling at office buildings.
• Print only coupons you will use, or are really high value. When I first started couponing I would print coupons that looked somewhat ok and I thought I might use. The problem with that is I ended up wasting paper and ink and never using them. Most of the coupon blogs will alert you to really great coupons that will disappear quickly, but most people know what is a great coupon for the item. There's an added advantage to waiting for some coupons as well: you get longer to use them.
• Consider buying a cheap printer for printing coupons, and remember look for one with cheap ink as well.
• Consider a laser printer. A little less than a year ago I bought a laser printer with money I got from doing surveys and rebates. It comes with a starter toner cartridge that lasted me til last month. It lasted for months after saying low toner. We bought the highyield replacement which I'm sure will last us a long time. We use the printer for coupons and pretty much anything that doesn't need color, which is a lot of things... And the quality is actually really great! If you are interested in the one I got check it out HERE. I bought it on sale for about $89, so wait for sales on these.
• Utilize sales and coupons. Office stores often have sales and coupons you can use to purchase paper and ink. Some also offer credits for bringing in your old cartridges.

With a little planning you can save even more with your printables. As always if you have any tips, share them below and I will add them to the post.