Several years ago, I decided I had enough of ink jets. We owned several models up until then and even tried those with individual color tanks thinking it might save us money. What a waste of time and good money.

Since I had the pleasure of working at Canon office automation once, I was well trained how a laser printer works and also how easy on the wallet it can be. But a basic black and white laser printer costs many times a color laser jet printer. Can we wean ourselves off the color printing aspect? It was a biggie.

In the end we decided that for business use, most of our printouts don’t need color. And so we took the plunge. The investment itself cost less than anticipated because we looked out for a deal. It came with a starter toner cartridge that was supposed to yield only 2000 prints but we got a lot more out of that.

When it was time to purchase our very first replacement cartridge that kinda hurt a little considering toner cartridges go for $70+ and up. But that too turned out to be a bargain because my cartridges last me about 11 months on average. Almost a year. Not bad at all, considering we used to spend $30 – $50 oh about every month or two months.

Now we have another laser printer, this time a color one. Yes it cost us a pretty penny and oh yes it costs a bit to replace the cartridges however, over time we actually saved money because the per-printout costs came down dramatically.

If you are trying to save some money in your home office, one of the first steps you may want to look at is your printer. Color prints for business are over rated. Especially for solo – internet businesses. It’s not like you’ll be doing much presentations on paper anyway. You will be surprised at how economical a laser printer can be.