Morning all,

Home schooling (and working from home) continue. SWMBO and I have 3 kids, merry little souls, each doing their best to get through home schooling and lack of contact with family and friends.

Something I hadn't considered at the start of this was the £££ cost of home schooling. Each of them needs to print numerous bits of schoolwork out to complete then scan and email back to their teachers.

We already had a Canon Pixma inkjet printer/scanner/copier suitable for the task. As a household our printing output used to be pretty minimal so I used to grab a ream (pack of 500 sheets of plain A4 paper) from work every once in a while. I used to buy inkjet cartridges from Ink2U ever once in a while.

Over the past few weeks I seem to have spent fortune on ink and paper to keep them going

Not their fault I appreciate, but it's rinsing my wallet a bit!


Does anyone have any preferred suppliers for inkjet cartridges and paper (good prices and home delivery)?

Thanks,
Nick

Why does it need to be printed and scanned just to be e-mailed back the school, can't you cut out the physical aspect and just attach the file you're printing to the e-mail?

Well mine who are in P1 & 2 need to practice their handwriting so their work is being printed off, they scribble all over it and then it's photographed and emailed back. They have typed a few stories on the laptop but by god they are ssssslllooooowwww

They have also been using a stylus on their tablets which kind of works, bit messy writing but fine for maths. Wife has a HP Wifi printer and it orders ink itself which is delivered by post which is costing currently £7.99 a month so we never run out, it's been very reliable and she seems to really like it. Paper is just Asda's cheapest stuff.

They do have jotters which they write in based on questions on the screen and the teacher reads them stories sent on vids for them to then draw pictures or write about. It's actually working quite well and full credit to the wife's hard work and the teachers for pulling it off.



[Edited on 15/5/20 by Mr Whippy]

My kids are secondary school (1 in year 9 and twins in year 7).

Like Mr Whippy's they have to print off, handwrite, photograph and email (PDFs and no touchscreens).

The paper I'm getting from Ebay for £4.80 / 500 sheets A4 80gsm.

The ink from Ink2U for £28.40 1x black + 1x colour re-manufactured jumbo cartridges. You post the empty cartridges back FoC and get £2.00 credit.

It's the ink I'd like to save money on and should probably make more of an effort to look for cheaper options.

Printer is wireless so they can all print to it. 2x cheap laptops and 1x cheap desktop.

Slight increase in ink cartridge cost yes, but compared to the cost savings in swimming lessons, gymnastics, girls brigade, brownies, play dates with pals, trips to cinema, trampolining, days out etc etc we are still very much quids in.

Although I'd swap all the savings to let them have some contact with their pals again. The lockdown whilst necessary is breeding a generation of kids who are going to be fearful of human contact. Very damaging.

Sounds expensive for the ink, but I suppose it depends on how many pages you get from that, have you looked at online comparisons for price per page of various printers? It might not take much to be better off with a different printer as they are so cheap these days.

Our school arent asking to see scanned versions of the completed worksheets, but they are providing a weeks worth of printouts for any kids who need it. (handy when our printer died)

i got an ink refill kit many years ago from tesco,only cost a quid i think, been filling my carts ever since and still plenty left, as for paper, places like poundland.

We sometimes don't print much for ages, and found inkjets were always getting blocked etc, so bought a pretty basic B+W laserjet.
Seems really economical to run, and we don't really miss colour printing (if needed wife does it at work)
Plus it means the kids don't drain the ink at a rate of knots by printing crappy A4 pictures.

anyone ever tried one of the continuous ink printers to see how them compare ?

my printer technically still works, but as its on a parallel port I doubt that it'll work on win7/10 (canon BJC600 cica 1994) and I've been half thinking about getting another one since I've been working from home (and looks like I will be for some time yet...)

luckly my girls don't need anything printed off for school at the moment though (P1 & nursery)


also if anyone is missing a scanner - The MS office app you can get for your mobile had an app called 'office lens' its a free scanner type app. (its the same one you get with office 365 on win10, but it might be tricky on to use with a webcam)
lets you take a photo, automatically straitens it up and lets you save it in various formats inc PDF etc...
I used to use it on my old windows phone and the newer android version seems to work just as well.

[Edited on 15/5/2020 by mcerd1]

I just by ebay cartridges for my Eposon inkjet. TBH they seem really cheap and seem to last a long time. £20 worth of mixed colours lasts 6 months plus.

I buy Amazon basics paper but the box. Don't use that much though.

Given the GCSEs and A levels were cancelled I'm probably saving 50 sheets a day not printing out past papers!

When you take transport and lunch costs into account we are spending way less in the lockdown on the kids.

My B&W laser printer cost me £40 years ago, I had to buy a refill last week for exactly the same reason as you, printing out schoolwork.
The refill cost me £6 and should last a couple of years at least.

It's worth having a black and white laser printer for the cheap cost as well as a colour printer, works for me

When it first looked like I would be working at home (agreed with the company before the lockdown was announced, as my wife is on immunosuppressant medications), I already had an A4 colour laser printer, but managed to pick up a Canon iX6850 A3 inkjet printer for £10 on Gumtree. The thing to watch out for is the price of ink - the Canon uses 5 (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black and Black pigment) at £65 a set from PCWorld … or £17.99 for two complete sets, plus two spare Black pigment cartridges on Ebay.

quote:

---

Originally posted by sdh2903 The lockdown whilst necessary is breeding a generation of kids who are going to be fearful of human contact. Very damaging.

---

My Daughter had to buy a printer, paper etc for the grand kids to do work on, and all seems fine, although the 6 yr old twins don't like anything about school work as "mum" isn't a qualified teacher!!! we did laugh

Although the cost of printer etc and running it all, my daughter has paid off a couple of debts, as she is not spending anything like she did before, as every time a visit to the shops, was sweets and the like for the kids, (3) she is saving, around £100 a week because they havnt been out

I can empathise with this, as even with my 80% wages coming in, and we are not going out, as both have health issues

I incredibly seem to of increased my bank balance, as we are not spending anything like what we were

but please weigh up the costs , against staying safe, or paying a bit more for school work, as I would willing give up every pound I own if I knew my family were safe for life

I also know that in our area, Sussex, schools will provide families with a laptop and basic hardware, for those who are unfortunate to not have this basic material to achieve school work from home

Also, my next door neighbour is my grand kids twins (6) teacher, and she said only a week ago, let the kids do what ever, but try and get them to read for as long as you can a day, apart from that let them play, as its still learning, don't force it, but make it a bit of fun

All of us sensible people are trying to stay safe, and protect our loved ones and at this time money means diddly squat

steve

quote:

---

Originally posted by sdh2903
The lockdown whilst necessary is breeding a generation of kids who are going to be fearful of human contact. Very damaging.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by 02GF74

quote:

---

Originally posted by sdh2903
The lockdown whilst necessary is breeding a generation of kids who are going to be fearful of human contact. Very damaging.

---

I think you exaggerate.

Children are very resilient and adjust far quicker and easier than adults. The lock down has been going on for around two months. In WW2 children were taken away from parents, siblings sometimes being separated, to live with strangers in unfamiliar places and had to contend with lack of food, lack of clothing, no Internet or TV whilst their homes were being bombed so parents would be killed. This went on for years. Someone please correct me but I am not aware of that generated being damaged.

---

A couple of weeks ago my 5-year-old granddaughter was very tearful and wouldn't go to sleep - after a bit of coaxing from my daughter-in-law she said that she was very scared of the coronavirus, and was everyone she knew and loved going to die...

...fortunately my daughter-in-law is an excellent and loving mother who said all the right words to calm her worries.

Choked me up when I heard about that as she is normally a lively and mischievous-in-a-nice-way little lady who's full of love and laughter.