If you have ever started a new business or spent time at college as a student, you will know that you don’t have a limitless budget that allows you to go off to the local Mega Mart and buy endless quantities of branded ink cartridges.

Yes, you watch every penny and if you can save one or two on none-essential products then you will. I would class printer cartridges as a distress purchase, show me someone who thinks nice and happy thoughts about buying their next office consumable and I will show you a dull person indeed!

I remember finding an online store that promised me endless refills for the price of one cartridge. So I had this decision to make:
Do I buy a 500ml bottle of ink that would probably last me ten years or go with the already recycled cartridge, at the same price?

I knew I would never use up all the ink, but went with it as the site explained it was oh, so easy to refill the little things. I received the bulk ink without any problems ... until I started using it.
• The black cartridge only seemed to take a dribble of ink at any one time – so I had to refill it after printing every two sheets or so! After contacting the technical support they advised that this type of cartridge needed to be filled under a ten bar vacuum, Hmmm really.
• After filling up the colour cartridge, all I got was a green hue over all my prints, no matter what colour it was meant to be printing. Again technical support said I must have put the wrong colour in the wrong chamber, or the cartridge head had become contaminated. Contaminated with what I thought, do I now need to buy a Geiger counter and test it for radiation?
• I got ink all over the sink, my fingers and the kitchen when I tried to squeeze too much ink into the little blighter and it overflowed without warning.

Print cartridges are utility objects, you don’t look at them or display them on the mantelpiece… you just want them to work properly and be affordable.

The problem again with refilling is that you end up with a cartridge that’s no longer holds any utility because it doesn’t really work very well.

Do you have the time to keep on taking the cartridge out of the machine finding the ink, associated paraphernalia like syringes, tubes and mopping up equipment? Some people are time rich and I suppose if this is you then refilling is the way to go. The problem is that I’m time poor and fed up wasting time on a none productive task like this, so now I just either buy the guaranteed, compatible or pre-recycled versions.

I would say that this is the middle road and most economical method for buying printer cartridges. They’re not as expensive as the original branded ones, with slightly less quality, but fine for the printouts I produce, which are not going to be stored by the British Museum for posterity’s sake!

John Pickering is the owner of EezyTrading.co.uk - an online retailer of new and refilled ink cartridges for Brother, HP, Canon, Epson, Lexmark and Xerox printers. Visit us online today and begin saving.