If you are on a tight budget, you’ve probably realized that replacement ink cartridges are not cheap. If you need an ink cartridge that will give you a quality result, you may be hard pressed to find one cheap.

A small percentage of people who buy ink for their printers don’t care about the quality of the job printed. If you’re someone that doesn’t care if their cartridge gives quality results, you plenty of low priced options to choose from. If you’re like me, however, you can’t settle with the most mediocre of cartridges. When it comes to compatible ink cartridges, high quality prices isn’t always synonymous with high prices.

One of the most popular ways to save money when it comes to buying ink cartridges is to refill them yourself. If you’re someone that has to worry about how much they pay for things, you’ll discover that buying a refill kit for ink is a cheap and effective solution. Most printer ink refill kits will cost about the same price as a new set of cartridges. The main advantage to buying a kit, however, is you get a lot of refills out of just one kit.

Refilling your own printer ink has a number of pros and cons. The number one pro is that it saves you tons of money per print. Most people can save over 60% to 70% off the original manufacturer’s price on printer cartridges. But with that one pro of saving money, there are a few reasons why you wouldn’t want to do ink refills. For cons, refilling is a very messy and at times–risky–process. Many people have messed up or damaged their printers because their refilled cartridge leaked. Because of ink’s severe staining ability, you have to watch and make sure you don’t spill on anything you want to keep unmarred. Finally, some printers use electronic chips inside the ink cartridges and if you try to refill one of those types of ink, your printer will not accept it when the cartridge is reinserted.

The best way to save money on your ink cartridges is through re-manufactured cartridges. Many local office stores and online stores sell this cartridges at prices much lower than the national brand name. Saving lots of money is easy with buying 3rd party cartridges. They prove to be much more reliable than buying ink refill kits (plus they don’t stain your clothes) and they give a much better quality print.

There are quite a few office stores and other similar stores locally that can sell you refilled ink cartridges or refurbished ink jet cartridges. Locally, OfficeMax tends to have the best prices for ink refills and refurbished cartridges. If you’re someone that needs their ink right away for printing, you can’t get much cheaper than them (especially if you have coupons). If you’re not in a giant hurry to get the ink for your printer, you can shop online for the best deals and the cheapest ink cartridges. Many online sellers for ink have decent quality ink for prices that can’t be beat locally. When buying ink online, you can expect to save over 60% on your ink compared to buying new name-brand cartridges locally.