Many money saving websites and related articles will proclaim the power of cutting costs in your home office through the wackiest of ways. While this isn’t to say that using envelopes from junk mail, decreasing the brightness of your computer screen, and reusing rubber bands from the mail, will save you money, but the savings are minimal when compared to other areas. Having worked in an office the majority of my career, and now from a home office, I’ve found that the majority of costs associated with office work of any sort come from two main supply categories – printer cartridges and paper. If you can decrease costs on these two products, you may be able to cut your office supply budget by as much as 50%.

1. Compatible vs. Original Ink Cartridges

With office supply stores and drugstores now offering either refill programs or discounted compatible cartridges for most consumer printers, you can slash your office supply costs. With originals often selling for several times the prices of refills and compatibles, they can be real budget busters. Even if you only go through one or two cartridges a month, choosing compatibles or refills can save you from 40-60% or more.

2. Print in Black and White

Avoiding using your color cartridge, except in occasions when it is absolutely necessary, can also save you undue costs. Changing your printer settings to print in only black and white, or taking the color cartridge out of your printer completely (assuming it still works without it), can reduce the amount of color ink you use, avoiding having to replace those more expensive color cartridges.

3. Consider Best Before Dates

While in some cases, it is advisable to buy in bulk to receive discounts, this isn’t always the case with printer cartridges – especially replacements and refills. These items only have a limited lifespan (many cartridges can only be refilled 3-4 times before they begin to lose effectiveness) and exposure to air over time can cause them to dry out. Therefore, consider your usage before stocking up and try to keep cartridges in their sealed packages until you are ready to use them.

4. Reuse Paper

It often isn’t until we begin working from a home office where we are responsible for office supply costs that we realize the significant expense of buying paper. When an employer is paying, those misprints probably go right in the garbage or recycle bin, but when you are footing the bill, it’s a different story. While you certainly don’t want to send professional documents on reused paper, if you’re only using the documents for personal purposes, why not use that blank side to print on as well?

5. Make Smaller Copies

By using your print options, you can often print between 2-4 pages (that are still easily legible) on one sheet of paper. That means a total of 8 pages on one sheet of paper (front and back) or a total of 4,000 pages on a ream of 500 sheets of paper.

6. Recycle Notepads & Scratch Paper

We aren’t done with those sheets of paper just yet though. If you really want to get your money’s worth, rather than recycling or trashing them, keep them in a scrap pile for jotting down notes rather than using a notepad.

7. Use Paper Clips

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not going to focus too much on the little stuff. There are however, several smaller supply categories, which, if handled with care, can significantly reduce office costs over time. One of these categories is clips. These tiny helpers can be used dozens, even hundreds of times, cutting down the number of staples you use, and reducing paper waste by avoiding rips and tears.

8. Pens & Notepads

I haven’t bought a pen or a notepad in years. Stocking up on these types of products whenever you can, by grabbing freebies from banks, hotels, hospitals, realtors, etc. can eliminate this cost from your supply budget altogether.