Wish we had a Staples. Our cartridges are close to what your's cost. Like $38/black and $38 for color. Thats at Walmart, much higher in town here. It hurts to buy them, when you think of how cheap printers are now days you can buy a new one for the price of ink!

In answer to your question, Jodi...Staples has no way of knowing whether you purchased the ink from them. I, inadvertently, turned in a few Canon cartridges that I didn't buy from them. I received the $2/each credit. Normally, I buy all my ink at Staples and that's the purpose of the rebate program. Technically, one is getting a discount off the next purchase of ink. I think the program is manufacturer sponsored through Staples. I know that my store has gone to great lengths with Canon to keep their pricing equal in all supplier stores in my area. BJ's carries all brands of printer ink...including Canon...and I recently made a point of noting that BJ's, Walmarts and Targets pricing is now equal to Staples shelf prices. With my return cartridge credits...I now get the Canon ink for less than shelf price and that's Staples goal.

I haven't seen much in the coupon inserts for a long time which is part of the reason I quit getting the Sunday paper. The store ads often have coupons that can be worthwhile. I refuse to pay $2 for a newspaper to get a few cents worth of coupons. I laughed at my recent receipt that was saying I "saved" 48% on my bill! I went do people HONESTLY believe this????? then I thought of my cousin who thinks he's "saving" that much. I tried to explain to him that when you buy things you wouldn't buy, you're not saving, you're spending. And OK, buying Brand A and using a coupon isn't saving ANYTHING when you can buy generic or Brand B for less money to start with! But people are gullible and manufacturers count on that. Coupling coupons with a sale *can* be good but aren't always. Remember that "sale" prices aren't always good prices. I've done better by logging prices and knowing what's a good price. I also have done real well with using a coupon when items go on clearance, when the clearance price is a *good* price. When I did do some couponing, I would take all the coupons I could conceive me ever using and carry them at all times. Then when I saw something on clearance I did very well. For instance Old Spice promo packs were on clearance for $1.18. I had coupons for $1 off a purchase (net 6 cents plus tax per stick) and a $2 of purchase of two. However this certainly wasn't common so there was a lot of effort. Unfortunately a lot of people are fooled into thinking they're saving a lot when they don't. Saving money takes some effort to be aware. I like White Rain shampoo - best shampoo I've ever used and I'm trying their body wash, each are $1 a bottle at Walgreens. Far cheaper than big names with a coupon, even on clearance. Double coupons can be tricky too. Most stores that do this have higher prices so it's a partial shopping trip which adds other expense and time. To do some serious coupon clipping it takes a lot of time. I have decided I won't spend the money on the paper so the source of coupons is limited. However the store ads usually have coupons and I'll use them. And I'll watch for various specials and promos. For instance CVS had a deal where you buy a Gillette ProGlide razor, you get $5 off your next purchase. I had a coupon for a free razor, used it and got $5 credit for next time. I then used that to buy some other things while I was at the store. But this type of thing is rare and I don't shop CVS often - but this attracted my attention. There's occasionally some deals to be had. The other thing is you have to watch them on coupons. I was at Rainbow and had a $1 off purchase of 2 coupon for box potatoes. Rainbow has occasional double coupon days. And they happened to have these on sale for $1/box. So I'd get 4 boxes for free and I like to have them on the shelf for an easy side dish or add some meat and veggies and make a meal. Well, the cashier didn't scan in those coupons. At least I checked it before I left the store so I went to the service desk, but then it was a search. They weren't in the coupon pouch, they even checked the wastebasket (which told me what happens a lot!) until I went over there and there they sat on the little "table" for writing checks and signing charge slips. They half-accused me of trying to pull something, but the service desk gal herself was very nice about it. She said this happens a lot. Especially with "certain cashiers". And I caught other stores not giving the discounts and such too. It's maddening but it's caveat emptor. P&G's BrandSaver used to have a lot of higher value coupons but they've gotten to be slimmer now too.

I have an HP all-in-one printer with 6 cartrides. Sometimes, I do change when the low indicator pops up, but not always. I use the build-in features of the printer to see how low the cartridges are. I may print a report or just look at the printer's graphics display. If there is 8% to 10% left, I'll print a bit more; If its down to 5%, its change out time. I not sure how the modern printers manage the ink supply these days. Before I retired, I had bad experiences with early ink jets, noteable, a Tektronics printer. If this one ran dry and any air entered the supply side of the print head, the pulse pump would loose its prime and would not oeprate again until primed. It could not re-prime itself as it needed to re-establish surface tension with the ink supply. It required a service call to get it going again. Paying a tech over $200 just to prime the print head was too much. Obviously, this printer was replaced during the next office equipment upgrade cycle. These comments apply to printers with fixed ink jets and with cartridges that hold only ink. [On some printer models, each cartridge has the print jets built into the cartridge, and on these, you can run those to empty without any prine problem.] Because of past, but very old experience, I do not run a fixed print head dry of ink. I do not wish to take a chance of loosing prime and having to re-establish it, although, I suppose the new printers have addressed that problem - I simply do not know and it is not explained in the instructions that comes with the printer. The instruction is: Change the cartridge when indicated.