NOT Buying a New Printer (hopefully)

Thank you, thank you to Bridget and Pam who left me such encouraging messages after my binge day yesterday. I've had a much better  day today - Breakfast was porridge made with skimmed milk and served with a sliced banana; Lunch was one of yesterday's jacket potatoes with light soft cheese and salad; Dinner was leftover lamb and lentils made in to a curry and served with rice; Snacks were 2 yogurts and a cup-a-soup. I feel full and happy that I'm back in control and have eaten more healthily. Tomorrow I'm out at my volunteering all morning so shouldn't be tempted to overeat and while in Deal I can pick up some of those yummy Braeburn apples to snack on from the greengrocer in the high street

I've also had a No Spend Day today. The weather was foul again so I stayed in and sorted through the photos to make a start on DS2s 21st birthday scrapbook. I did a lot of scanning and some printing until the bloody printer packed in. Its an Epson and I've been getting 'Service required' messages for ages but have ignored them as its been working fine. Apparently though with Epson printers they have a built in counter system that counts every sheet of paper that passes through them (even the blank ones) and when it reaches a certain number it simply stops printing any more and shows an error message until you take it to be serviced and they reset the counter.

I was appalled when I searched the internet for info and read this. I mean, mine's been working fine, although we've probably had it about 3 years, but this forces you to either have it serviced or buy a new printer. It's something to do with the inkpads getting saturated but, again, I've had no trouble with ink smudges or leaks so mine seem to be perfectly good.

Since the printer only cost about £45 to start with and a service will likely be around £30-40 there's no way I'd pay out to have it serviced when I could get a new one for an extra £5-10. But then how is that even environmentally friendly? Anyway, my research also discovered that there are ways to reset the counter yourself so I've purchased a cd from Ebay for £2.99 that should do the trick. The seller has very good feedback so, fingers crossed it will work. If not then I've wasted £2.99 but I'd rather give that a go first than simply ditch the printer and buy a new one. If its successful I'll have saved myself about £40, in fact more than that since I just purchsed more ink cartridges for this one and wouldn't be able to use them on a new model.

Having a working  printer isn't exactly a necessity, but I still do some cardmaking and would find it difficult to make DS's scrapbook without one. Would I buy an Epson again? If this cd works and I know how to reset the counter in future then I probably would since they are cheap, print well and I can get compatable ink cartridges quite cheaply. If it doesn't work, then I'll have to think twice about it. I'm still really annoyed that Epson do this, though, forcing their customers into such a decision, and likely being responsible for many printers going to landfill as people buy new instead of having their old ones (which would likely still work perfectly well if it wasn't for this counter thingy) serviced.

Fortunately, I did manage to get quite a few photos scanned and some printed and can at least make a start on the scrapbook. I have until 23rd March but I know how long it can take to put something like this together having done 4 already. The hardest part is deciding which photos to use when there's so many lovely, cute ones and I can only put 2 or 3 on each page. I keep asking myself why did I start this tradition with DD1?

DD2 and her boyfriend are coming to dinner tomorrow night so look out for the recipes for Hoppin John and Chilli Cheese Cornbread.