What’s more expensive than gasoline, champagne and Chanel No. 5? Printer ink.

Are you wasting precious printer ink? 

If you turn your printer off - you probably are. The price of printer ink ranges from $13 to $75 an ounce - and a lot of it never even makes it to the page. A significant portion of ink evaporates, is considered residual, or is used to maintain the health of the print head. You can conserve ink by changing some of your printer habits:

* Leave the power on. There is a maintenance cycle that is triggered every time you turn it on or off which can guzzle ink on some models.

* Print in Draft mode. This reduces the amount of ink used in printing.

* Avoid printing large photos, especially in high-quality mode. They use tons of ink.

* Don’t change cartridges unless you must. Some people switch out their expensive cartridge with a bargain brand for big jobs - but that triggers an initialization cycle that wastes more than you’ll save.