There are two types of people in the world, those like DH who wait until the petrol tank light comes on before filling it and those like me who fill it when it goes below half full. (OK, so there is actually a spectrum of when people fill their tank, but that doesn't suit my point.)
Same applies to the printer in our study. It's on DH's desk facing towards a wall (DH's desk faces outwards) so I can't see the display. DH does about 98% of all the printing and photocopying in the family so I would look at the display when I use it but that's generally only every six-eight weeks or so. The thing is that DH won't order ink for it. He waits until it goes low, then he waits a bit longer until things are not coming out the right colour because there's none at all left of one of the colours, then he waits a bit longer until sheets are coming out with blank bits. That's when he orders ink, which takes three or four days to arrive. And then he gets all frantic because he needs to photocopy something important or print out a boarding card or something. He can be a bit of a scrooge about some inconsequential things, so I think this pattern of usage is to do with feeling that ink is a rip-off (which it is), whatever the cause is he's not going to change, don't think I haven't tried.
Most of my printing is quilt patterns, so not at all urgent, and I have been going to the local copy shop and having them printed there. It costs quite a bit, over €13 for 37 pages last time, but the quality is lovely and when there is a picture of a blue piece of fabric being sewn to a peach piece of fabric they are actually blue and peach not two shades of lavender. It's a bit of a pain though because the shop is out of my way and even though I email it to them first they never have it ready and I have to hang around for it.
The real issue is when the DC need something printed out for school. They invariably need to print in colour, after the time the copy shop has closed and need to hand it in the next day. It's also usually when DH is out for the evening, like today, so I bear the brunt of their frustration.
So my choices as far as I can see them are
- to have my own printer and not let DH use it (because otherwise he will run out of ink on his and then use mine until it runs out of ink too), but that seems a bit over the top when I probably print a total of 100 pages a year at the very most.
- order spare ink but not tell him that I have it so that I can change the ink if necessary when the DC or I need to print something, but that's also a pain because I will need to change back to the old ink afterwards so that Scrooge McPrinty can use up every last drop before throwing it away. It also turns me into his office manager who will be blamed if he runs out of ink because it has become my job.
Any simple, obvious solution that I've overlooked?