I am really excited to bring you this guest post from my friends over at Atlanta’s Frugal Mom!

Okay, so the following is no secret, at all, but here are some things I’ve been doing for YEARS to save printer paper and ink!  (Ink being rather expensive to purchase!!)

Printer Paper
You know all junk mail you get in snail mail?  Flip it over.  If it’s blank on the back, throw it in your printer’s paper tray!  I keep a box for one-sided 8.5″x11″ papers.  It’s filled with one-sided junk mail, as well as hundreds of miscellaneous other pieces of paper, only used once.

Think about it: for whom are you most likely printing?  If the answer is yourself, or someone else in your household, then does it matter if there’s something unrelated on the back?  Most likely not.  You’ll have to play with your printer to see how to feed the paper in, as it may not work exactly the same as mine.  For me, I place the paper in blank side down, and it rolls up and prints on the blank side.

Ink & Ink Cartridges
Oh, how I wish I had heard Clark Howard’s podcast discussing the evils of printers, their ink cartridges, and his solution!!  Kodak printers: you pay more up front for the printer, but the cartridges are extremely inexpensive, compared to other brands…

I digress.  Like many of us, you, too, may have been suckered in to buying the “cheap” printer, only to discover how it guzzles those expensive ink cartridges; thus, making your deal quite a dud.  Did you know you can change the default settings on your printer, so that you use significantly less ink each time.  Here’s how:

1. Under the control panel, open up your printer.
2. Select “printing/printer preferences”.
3. Go to the “color” tab, and select “print in grayscale”.  Some printers will allow you to further choose to print in “high quality” or “black ink only”.  Select “black ink only”, if you have this option.
4. Under “print quality”, select “fast draft only”.
5. Don’t forget to SAVE all these settings when you’re done.