Money-Saving Monday: A bit too thrifty

This is not an inspirational account about how to save money. This is a simple tale of woe.

Since I had heard several people say they get really good deals by printing Internet coupons on more than one printer (you're limited to a certain number of coupons per printer, typically two), I thought it would be worth it to revive my printer. (Plus, I wouldn't have to bug my husband every time I wanted to print something at his computer.) I purchased a black ink cartridge for my eight-year-old machine, thinking I would try to spend minimal money to get it up and running. No go—the printer required a black and a color cartridge to work.

Begrudgingly, I purchased the color cartridge and took it home, where I printed a few signs for my little guy's recent birthday party. Other than a few hiccups I'd expect from older technology, everything worked beautifully.

Later, I tried to print just an ordinary black-and-white document. Um, no. Spaces in the wording made it pretty ugly. Oh well, I thought. At least I can use the color cartridge.

I printed a couple practice documents as I was preparing to print some wording for invitations I'm currently making. Great! It was good to go.

Until I tried to print the actual thing. A little red light went on, and it was very stubborn. It supposedly meant there was a paper jam but there was not even a shred of paper in it. I unplugged it and turned off my computer. When I turned the printer on, that lovely little light just stared at me. I looked up Epson's trouble-shooting site and tried all the tricks it recommended. At the end, it gave me a standardized message saying I needed to take it to get it repaired, but it probably wouldn't be worth the expense.

Thank you so much.

When I told my husband, exasperated, he inspired me with these words: "You know, you can probably get a new printer for $30." Excuse me. I paid far more than that for the ink cartridges, which I now have to throw out because they are for such an archaic machine.

I'm sure I'll get over it, but just wasting money totally annoys me.

So the moral of this story? Sometimes I can be too thrifty. And being too thrifty, ironically, can cost a great deal. I should have tossed the old printer instead of trying to resurrect it after four years of latency.

I haven't completely given up, though. And if I get it to work, I suppose thriftyness will triumph after all.