My husband and I have been through two printers. Well, actually, we've had two printers. To say that we've been through them implies that we've worn them out, which is far from the truth. The second of our printers we've had for at least four years, now, and it's in it's box. It's been in it's box ever since the ink in the cartridges ran dry after we'd used it only a couple of times. That's the problem we have with our printers. We'd both really like to have one for the rare times we need one, but we use one so seldom that the ink dries out before we actually get any use out of it. So, for us, I guess it's just not worth having a printer at all.
Truthfully, I do not actually use our printer all that much. My mother is more the one who uses the printer, which is great since she pays for the ink and the paper and all of the rest of it lol. I have only ever printed off CV's, and important documents like bank statements. My mother has done the same, but she has recently began to find characters from children's TV shows on Google and print them off for the children in our household!!! They love it!!
I personally have found that our best printing option is kinkos or a library. We need to print VERY rarely. On the occassions we do need to print something, it's not urgent. It's not worth it to buy printers and replacement ink for the dried cartridges. Individual prints somewhere are cheaper by far. For a printer to be worth it to us, we'd have to use it for multiple pages, multiple times a week. We just don't. I have needed to print something twice in the last 6 months. Other things that I thought i might want to print I actually just needed to be able to access the information off line. It was easy enough to save it to flash drive or even take a picture of the screen from my phone.
In our case, we are a homeschooling family. A printer is very important for the daily worksheets of the children. For this reason, our personal use of the printer is more on the heavy side. Because of the cost of consumables, we opted to use laser printers because toner refills are cheaper than inkjet refills; and we mostly need black toner anyway. I do agree with hayrake that if a printer is rarely used, it is impractical to have one, especially if there is a printing shop available in the neighborhood. If there is none, I would suggest a laser printer instead. Toners don't expire that quickly as compared to inks.
We don't use the printer that much lately so it's not the best investment as it is true that the ink can dry up. I definitely don't use it that much at all but it's there when I need it. Even though Kinko's isn't that far I feel it's too pricey for me and it's not something I would walk to so it's convenient to be able to print at home. We mainly got it for college so my mom will be using it more when she goes back to class.
I do not have a printer at home. When ever I need to print something I will use the one from work. However as it's a work printer, I will only use it if I really have to. I don't find that I need to print a lot of stuff for me personally, so I would say I use a printer 80% of the times for work and 20% for personal reasons.
If you need to have a printer at home - don't buy inkjet if you don't use it often because ink will dry up. What you should look at is something LaserJet - I like Brother products for the price. I have a 2270DW machine and it works like a champ - I don't print too often at home - maybe once a week or every other week and have had no problems with my toner - if you notice that it is starting to fade - take it out give a it a shake and put it back in and it does the job to get a some more copies out of it.
This is how it is for us too so we just have our papers printed at shops nowadays because that's just way more practical. I could just get papers printed for a couple of cents so it doesn't even cost us that much extra especially considering we won't be wasting any money on a printer we'd only use a few times. The only real problem is that we need to leave the house just to get something printed but it's not that too much trouble.
Of course, I use my printer for my personal needs, not just for my work and school requirements. Because I remind myself of what I have to do using posters pasted on the walls and because I don't have a good handwriting, it's necessary for me to print those reminders. The reminders are really personal, like only me should read or understand them.
I had a printer and never used it and as I live in a small flat it occupied a lot of space so I got rid of it. These days I don't need to print that much, so I really think that I am better off.
I rarely use my printer as well, something like ten times a year or something, but I think a printer is worth having just in case you will need to print something for school or work for example.
We have a printer, but it's mainly for work for purposes because my husband runs a Graphic Design company out of our home office. We very rarely use it for personal things. We brought one with us from the UK when we moved countries to my country of Botswana. What we didn't take into account is the fact that they don't have that particular model here and never have! So we still have to order ink from the UK, which is both expensive and a hassle. So it looks like we'll just have to find money somewhere to buy a new one
Personally, I don't really use the printer. The only time that I will use it is if my mother needs for something to be printed off for one of the children's homework. She still isn't confident with using a computer, and so I have to do all of the technical stuff.
We have no printer at home so I usually use the office printer for personal use. But just to be on the safe side, I always ask permission from our boss. Besides, I only use the office printer when I would print a rush document of 1 or 2 pages. But for longer than that, we go to a printer shop or a cyber shop. Using the office printer for personal printing job can be a cause for termination.
I occasionally will print out a recipe to bring downstairs and use, or to mail to my mother, since she's offline. What I mostly print is shipping labels. I've had this printer for probably about 8 or 9 months, and I'm still thrilled that it's wireless, and I can print from downstairs, or from bed. For some reason, that feels really decadent, and makes me happy.
I love my printer and don't know how I'd get by without it. I use it on a daily basis for my work. I teach part time, and my students are always happy with the original material that we use in our classes. I often print articles and images from the internet to make our time together more interesting. I also use my printer for printing color photos for my personal use. I like to add that I have a very economical printer that doesn't require expensive cartridges every couple of weeks. It was a really good investment.
We have a printer at home but it hardly ever gets used because toner and ink are so expensive. My local library allows you to print 75 pages a week for free and so I usually will just go there if I need to print things.
The last time I bought a printer was over 3 years ago. I had bought a new desktop computer and a new laptop, so I figured it was time to get a new printer as well. It was a really basic Epson printer which was only about $35, but it printed and scanned documents, so that seemed like a steal at that price. It also had wireless capabilities too which was the icing on the cake. I found out rather quickly though why Epson was selling it so cheaply. The ink cartridges that came with it were only 25% full - so they were basically tricking you into going out and buying a whole new set of ink. To make matters worse, the printer liked to "clean" itself periodically, which wasted even more ink. And if you unplugged it when you weren't using it, and didn't let it do the cleaning cycle, the cartridges would simply dry up and become useless. I've bought ink for it once in the three years that I've owned it, and refuse to buy any more ink for it. Instead I just go to Kinko's and print my stuff for a few cents.
