MarketForce should buy my printer ink.

I finally said screw it and bought a laser printer. I was going through WAY too many color ink cartridges printing out the shops for the three burger joints, the pizza shop, and the grocery store. They use big blocks of highlighted color with white print in the middle, and it plays hell on my ink cartridges. Last month I had to change the cartridge after 10 shops, and HP color cartridges aren't cheap, and I haven't seen any office depot shops with $40.00 reimbursements lately.

This is why I love Sassie companies. All black print on the printer friendly page.

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Some times you just have to turn around, give a little smile, toss the match, set the bridge ablaze, and walk away.

Silver Certified on the Carolina Coast. You want fries with that?

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More Discussions About Market Force (All Companies)

jonchance,
Some of us use laser, black ink only, printers without any problems. Laser black toner only needed. Also, I do not print out all of the surveys, by a long shot. If you just make up some check lists for the shops that you do most frequently, no need for pages and pages of printed matter.

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

I only print the CPI page for Market Force shops.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

I print out the minimum. I have a HP printer all in one and I know the cartridges are costly, but amazon sells refurbished ones and they work great. They are HP compatible because my printers tells me they are genuine HP products. I got 12 the other day for $8.00

I print in greyscale when I can. LOA's of course, are printed in color.

Some shops I print out only the contract page and make notes.

Oh, and I buy my paper at Costco or Sams.

bgriffin Wrote:
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> I only print the CPI page for Market Force shops.

Me too, except for audits.

I don't print except in very unusual cases. I save the CPI and guidelines to a flash drive, to which I later save the receipt and the report.

I don't even own a color printer and I have done lots of shops with no problem. If you switch to black and white that should help with cost. I also reuse paper for the printing - no one is going to see them but me, so it doesn't matter. I use junk mail, or the back of something else I printed, etc. I also don't print shops over and over again. I make sure it is the same as last time, and then I use the one I already had printed.

I noticed the waste of ink when I started last year. Not sure why they put the guidelines with the paperwork when there is a separate link for them. I guess they just want to make sure you read them. They are not the only ones that do that. I know another msc that does the same thing.
Here is what I do to cut wasted paper and ink. Most printers allow you to select which pages to print rather then just clicking 'print". If a report has 11 pages , the first 4 and last page are guidelines, I print pages 5-10. I like having hard copy records of my work so I print the entire report.
Just make sure you read the guidelines every time to make sure there are no changes.
The one I did this week I printed the entire thing as the paperwork clearly stated 2014.

Got rid of my HP color laserjet since replacing all the ink cost nearly as much as a new printer. Even though I only printed black and white, the color cartridges would get used. I think, no I know, HP is making the vast amount of their profit from their ink and toner.

I got an AIO and like it much better. Black and white only.

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The more I learn about people...the more I like my dog..

Mark Twain

I reuse my paper too if I am the only one seeing it. When I first started this crazy business, I printed everything to death, but not now = a bit wiser.

I couldn't find those HP compatible cartridges, Canuck. Can you help me, please?

(heart)

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

stilllearning Wrote:
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> I couldn't find those HP compatible cartridges,

I get mine from colortonerexpert.com

Hang on for a minute. I'm signing into amazon now and will look at my orders and give you the link, k?

stilllearning Wrote:
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> I couldn't find those HP compatible cartridges,
> Canuck. Can you help me, please?
>
> (heart)

[www.amazon.com]

These are the ones I got. You might have to click a drop down box to see if it's compatible with your printer.

Good luck

Thank you so much! Unfortunately, my printer isn't compatible, but it was worth that moment of excitement!

I'll check out colortonerexpert.com per eveb's suggestion.

(heart)

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

So, instructions from a Mystery Shopping Company about what to print can be disregarded?

~
up, up, down, down, left, right,left,right, B,A, start.

I am very fortunate that my husband's company pays for our ink/paper every month as part of his expense reimbursement! I told him I probably wouldn't do this much if I had to pay for it out of pocket, it takes a lot out of your fees for doing it in the first place. I have learned though, that I don't need to print as much as I did when I first started.

Well...amazon has a ton of ink. You might get a better price there..and you're welcome.

stilllearning Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thank you so much! Unfortunately, my printer isn't
> compatible, but it was worth that moment of
> excitement!
>
> I'll check out colortonerexpert.com per eveb's
> suggestion.
>
> (heart)

Only print CPI. Save all the rest in files.

I print the 'accepted' email so I have something to attach the receipt to and have proof of the fees, dates and times. I print the signature required page for audits, verifications, or any paperwork that has to be left onsite.
For my personal use, I save the guidelines to my desktop for reviewing. And save the guidelines in a reading app, such as Kindle, or in Evernote on my iPad. I also copy the report form to Evernote. After completing the shop I fill out the form and make my notes. After i submit the report, I email myself a copy.

When I first started and felt I needed all the guidelines, I would do a copy and paste into a word doc, make all text black and white, eliminate any unneeded spaces and make the text as small as I need to see. If I was doing a lot for the same company, I used a set of colored pencils and each shop had notes in a different color.

Now I mainly use my iPad.

I don't always get around to printing, like for last weekend, so I copied all the shop info into e-mails for each shop. I then read the instructions on my phone. Now, most of it worked out well, but one e-mail had text that was formatted weird so the purchase requirement came out with one letter per row (quite annoying). Anyway, I found this method worked out much better for me. I don't print out the e-mails as I save them all anyway (and I'm more organized virtually than with hard copies). I'd misplace the paper if I printed everything out then wanted to save the copies for my files.

I print out the important stuff in case of a computer failure which happened to me 5 days ago. I had to buy a new drive. I did have most backed up, but not all of it.

Anyway, we are all different and if it works for us, then that's great, right?

You can buy empty ink cartridges on ebay, recycle 10 per month at Staples, and get $20 per month in Staples Rewards. They require you to purchase $30 worth of ink every 6 months, which it sounds like you would do anyway. After the $30 you pay outright for, you'd still have $20 per month you can use to buy more ink (or anything else. I bought a paper shredder, a GPS, and a heavy duty toolbox using my rewards).

Office Depot does this, too, but the purchase requirements are more stringent.

Shopping since 1995; full-time since 2009. Blogging about shopping on www.myfrugalmiser.com.

If I print on my HP all-in-one, I hit control +Pm select the Preferences or Properties tab, scroll down to two sided printing choice, hit the "Features" tab at the top of the window, scroll down to "Print in Greyscale", hit ok and then when the next window opens hit Print and Voila half the paper used and no expensive color ink.

I always choose greyscale and fast, economical printing. It's perfect. But..if I have to print out a LOA or a 'certificate', I slow the printer down and print in color.

bestofbothworlds Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If I print on my HP all-in-one, I hit control +Pm
> select the Preferences or Properties tab, scroll
> down to two sided printing choice, hit the
> "Features" tab at the top of the window, scroll
> down to "Print in Greyscale", hit ok and then when
> the next window opens hit Print and Voila half the
> paper used and no expensive color ink.

I also select "Fast Draft" vs leaving it on "Normal". It saves a lot of printing time and I have to believe it also saves ink.

(heart)

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

I print only CPI and save one copy of guidelines as a PDF. Why print?

No fee, no shop.

If you have a smartphone or tablet with wifi access, you can pull up shop notes and instructions right before the shop. I don't think at I have printed a single page (except for signed manager sheets, etc) for six months now. Over the last two years, the savings on printer ink has completely paid for my iPad.

I print to a point. Computer failure is not good and I had that happen to me the other day. All is great now and I'm doing what works best pour moi.

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