Small Business Savings Tips - Part 5

Printing supplies are essential for practically any business, but they can be a huge drain on the budget. Costs, quickly add up as your business grows. That's why it is imperative that you start now with good practices to cut down on printing costs.

The first and obviously most logical practice is to cut down on the amount that you print. Download Adobe Reader from Adobe. It's easier to share a PDF across multiple platforms than it is to share a word processor document. Adobe Reader will convert any file or image into a PDF. You can share the document right from the Reader if you sign up for a free account with Acrobat.com or you can just upload it to your Google Docs (if you have a Google account) and share it from there. The bottom line is you save money by not printing a copy for each collaborator.

There are times when you must print and if you do, then try and plan ahead. It's convenient to go to your local office supply store to purchase ink and paper, but it's not cheaper. Let's take the HP Officejet 5610 as an example. It requires the HP 56 black ink cartridge. To buy this at the office store it would cost $23.99. The same retail package costs $22.99 at 4inkjets. That's not where you get the real savings. A re-manufactured HP 56 cartridge costs just $12.99 (or $12 ea when purchased as a 3 pack). Now you're almost at half cost, but it gets better. Going with a refill kit costs just $11.95. That gives you 2 refills so the per unit cost is really just $6. Now you're all the way down to a 75% discount! To get the last bit of savings you'll need to order $50 or more. That will get you free shipping as well as allow you to use one of our 10% off coupons. That means if you order 9 of these refill kits your total cost will be $54 minus the 10% discount or $48.60, making the unit cost just $2.70 per cartridge. That's about an 85% discount and probably a few years worth of ink!

Need paper? It's cheaper online as well. You'll find that your local office store sells a case (5 reams of 500 sheets) for about $21. Quill on the other hand sells a carton (10 reams of 500 sheets) for $30. That's $3 per ream at Quill as opposed to $4.20 per ream at your local office store. Order two cartons at Quill and shipping is free.

Keep in mind these supplies are for normal every day use. For large printing jobs, it is much cheaper, especially or color prints, to outsource it to someone like VistaPrint or PrintPlace. Just figure 1 ink cartridge (4 if you are printing in color) per ream of paper for your unit cost calculations.