Printer ink my costs over three years

gfplux

I bought a new printer in June 2009. It is an Epsom Stylus SX105. I paid under €100. I am a little anul and have kept a record of every time I changed one of the four ink cartridges. Now three years on I have done a simple analysis of my ink usage.
I am retired and we are a household of three but 95% of the printing or copying is done by me and I consider myself a normal/average user.
So to the stats. Replaced cartridges over three years not counting the (probably half empty) cartridges in the new machine.

Cyon 12 cartridges (28% of total)
Magenta 9 cartriges (21% of total)
Yellow 7 cartriges (16% of total)
Black 15 cartriges (35% of total)

A rough average cost of each cartridge is €8. So the total cost over three years is €344 or about £275.
That is a shocking amount of money, or is it.
Do other fools have any views on the above.

Interestinglowed now have two iPads in the household And I am thinking about the purchase of a new printer that supports printing from them and so "running cost" will now play a part in my research. However on first look running costs are very difficult to find.

fishybusiness

Guess it depends on what you are printing, lots of ink intensive photo's will costs you no doubt, text only should be cheap.

As a comparison, our Dell 1320c laser costs us one set of toners every 6 to 9 months @ about £20 a set from ebay. The kids use it a fair bit for cbeebies pictures and the like, my partner and I print loads of text for university work.

Apart from toner changes and paper top ups I don't do anything to it.

I don't worry about the cost of running it like I used to with my HP inkjet.

Yours seems expensive in comparison, but we can't print photo quality, or scan, that is our compromise for cheap running.

WhiteChristmas

Unless you're printing photographs and want the best quality possible (in which case, a home printer isn't really the best tool) then you really needn't use branded cartridges.

Generics off eBay come in at about a pound each and give perfectly acceptable day-to-day prints.

Parva

I bought 12 compatible cartridges from Ebay for £4.58 delivered for my Epson D78. I've bought them from the guy before and never had any problems with them and this lot will last me a couple of years or so.

Forgot to add that that is 3x each of black, magenta, cyan and yellow.

santer_2

For the SX105

http://www.inkexpress.co.uk/catalogue/Refillable-Ink-Cartridges/Epson/Stylus-SX105.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002LIUCY8/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=7807132523&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=10D2EWJVWBXCXWQW0GC9

Which would have covered the 43 - 47 genuine cartridges you used at 6.5ml

The refillable cartridges have two main advantages

They do not do the flush routine when changed - refilled

They can be used with head cleaning fluid if you get a stubborn blocked nozzle or nozzles

I use refillables in two PX800FW for photos and the output is fine

http://www.epson.co.uk/Printers-and-All-In-Ones/Inkjet/Epson-Stylus-Photo-PX800FW

The paper used is as important as the ink for photos

http://www.photopaperdirect.com/

macman

Switch to compatibles, or invest in a 4-col laser printer.

Niv

If you turn your printer off after each use it will also use more ink compared to leaving it on all the time.

Niv