Saving ink on Lexmark printer

Any bright ideas on how to save ink while using a Lexmark 5100 printer? My friend says he’s going through almost a printer cartridge a week. I’ve put him on draft quality, and defaulted him to black and white, but he says he’s being drained by this thing.

Let’s start with the basics. How much volume is he printing in a week?

He says 2-300 letters a week, mostly b/w.

He really would be better off with a laser printer in the long run; bigger initial outlay and consumables are individually quite expensive, but they last a loooooong time and work out cheaper per copy.

OK, point noted.

What’s really weird now is that the printer, even on “clean nozzles” mode, refuses to lay black ink. I get CMY, but almost no K. There’s a very steaky, almost non-existent black bar, until the end, where there’s more ink, but still not even half of what there should be. I keep putting it back in the printer, and of course it won’t even fit the wrong direction, so it’s not that. It’s a new cartridge, too.

Other than the cartridge being bad somehow, does anyone have any other suggestions?

Try cleaning the opening with rubbing alcohol.