What are the best ways to reduce printer ink costs?

Question

I'm actually about to lose my mind with this printer. I bought this HP DeskJet thing last year for like eighty bucks thinking it was a steal but my god the ink is a total scam. It feels like every time I turn it on it does some cleaning cycle that just eats half my cartridge and I havent even printed a full page yet. My kids have these big science fair projects due next month here in Chicago and I'm already looking at spending another $100 just on color ink which is literally more than the printer cost in the first place... it's just exhausting and I feel like I'm being punished for actually needing to use the thing.

I really need to find a way to stop the bleeding here because I'm on a super strict budget of maybe $20 a month for supplies tops and this is blowing way past that. I do about 50-100 pages a month for my part time office job and the kids school stuff so I cant just stop printing entirely but there has to be a better way than paying $60 for a tiny piece of plastic every three weeks. I tried those generic brands once and the printer gave me this annoying error message saying it wasnt genuine and then it just refused to work at all until I put the expensive stuff back in.

Here is what I am looking for if anyone has ideas:

should I look into those third party ink refill kits or are they just gonna break my printer or leak everywhere?

I heard about those tank printers like the EcoTank ones but spending $300 upfront sounds painful even if it saves money later, is the math actually worth it?

are there specific settings I can change in the software to make it stop wasting ink on those startup cycles every morning?

is a black and white laser printer actually cheaper if I still need color sometimes for the kids?

Honestly I am just fed up with the low ink warnings popping up when I know I've barely used the thing. It feels like legal robbery at this point and I dont know if I should just throw this one in the trash and start over with a different brand or if there is some secret trick I'm missing to make these cartridges actually last longer...

Jamesineta · Accepted Answer

This. Also, laser is the only way to go for reliability. Ive tried many refill kits over the years and they always leak eventually.keep it on constantly to skip cleaningprint a test page weekly Actually reminds me of my first office job in Chicago. We had this old lunch spot on Clark Street that served the best sandwiches until it became a bank... anyway lol sorry kinda went off topic there.

SilentComet · Answer

Honestly, those cheap HP printers are a total trap. A similar DeskJet model used at my old job was a nightmare. I think the math on tank printers like the EcoTank actually works out if you print 100 pages a month, but that $300 entry price is painful. Not sure about those refill kits tho... IIRC they tend to be really messy and some say they basically clog the print heads. Unfortunately, those ink-guzzling cleaning cycles are usually hardcoded into the firmware. You cant really stop them easily. Someone told me that keeping the printer on all the time might waste less ink than power cycling it, but I'm not 100% sure if that works for every model. If you mostly do black and white, a cheap laser printer is probably more cost-effective, even if it's not as good as expected for the kids' color projects.