Credit to everyone who is trying to recycle their ink cartridges, but I still have concerns about these printers and their consumables. Ink jet printers are just plain hard on the budget and the environment, and the cartridges can't be refilled indefinitely, many only once and very few more than two or three times. Many applications don't really need an ink jet, I see lots of these printers being used in places where a laser or dot matrix would be much better suited to the job. Often people buy them because the initial printer cost is very low, frequently because it's heavily subsided by the expensive cartridges, sometimes the printer is sold for less than a full set of cartridges. However, when you consider the price of ink and special paper, it's multiple times cheaper to take your digital photographs or images to a shop and have them use their state of the art printer worth thousands to print them for you. No need to clutter up your house with another printer, no need to change cartridges or anything. Best of all it's not more work, you can either go out to the store to buy cartridges or you can go to the store to have your pictures printed. The only major difference is price and quality, both of which are better. Some places do it mail order or over the internet now, so you could have your prints sent to you. Of course some people do need a colour printer at home or in their office, there are genuine needs, but then it's fair to point out that the price of colour laser printers has dropped a lot now, and they're much better suited to high volume applications, but also don't dry up if not used for a while. They also work out much cheaper in the long term. Anyone who can justify their need for a high quality colour printer, for example a high volume of prints being made, can probably justify the initial expense of a colour laser as it will save them so much money in the long term.

I use Printpal and have been pleased with the results. They have free shipping available and it has been prompt. I did receive a defective 3rd party HP cartridge from them a couple of years ago. They replaced it without question and included a postage paid container to return the defective cartridge.

Yes, I knew there were expiration dates on ink (there's expiration dates on many things people wouldn't necessarily think about, peroxide & alcohol are just a couple) and there's also good and bad ways to store ink. You don't want to stockpile too much. I was looking in the store at the ink cartridges and wasn't surprised that the rotation wasn't maintained. Won't name the store. A couple people go crazy when it's mentioned. So watch when you buy too. Also, many if not most have a chip inside them to say they're out of ink before they actually are. They have to declare how much ink is in a cartridge but not how much you can actually use. On my Epson, there's a little reset switch. It gave me the message that it was out of ink. I pushed the reset and looky here, all of a sudden there's ink in there again! How it works varies from printer to printer but usually look around the electrical connection and there might be the little spot to poke a paper clip. The maddening part is that it has to cost more to put the electronics in there than it costs for the ink but they keep you buying it.

Glenda, go to www.staples.com - they have a 20% off coupon in the weekly ad (good for the purchase of one item). If you take in your old cartridge this week, you can get a $6 rebate credit. I usually either buy at Staples, or through www.hp.com (if HP sends me an e-mail about a sale, with free shipping). Yes, the cartridges are expensive, but I only use HP brands. I tried an off-brand one time, and it was worthless.