Saving Money in Your Home Office

Whether your home office is the head office of your business or your household, operating costs shouldn’t overwhelm you. Especially if you’re running a business, are a serious couponer or tending to a PTA commitment, office expenses can quickly get out of hand. Here are a few of my top tips for saving money in your home office.

Design on a Dime. Sure, that adorable new desk set is only $29.99 and the beautiful cork board just $19.99, but if they’ll be covered in miscellaneous papers within days anyway, skip the matching sets. Instead, get the kids involved with making you cute magazine holders from cereal boxes and scrapbook paper and bulletin board with old frames, fabric and ribbon.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The home office is the perfect place to stash scrap paper, free giveaway pens, an old tablecloth (covering the dented file cabinet you snagged for free on freecycle). Don’t forget to reduce your energy use by unplugging small electronics when you’re not using them. Turn off the lights whenever you leave the room, even if you think you’ll only be gone a moment. If you’ve got kids underfoot, a quick distraction might turn into hours away from your office with the lights on, music playing and computer humming away.

Print Smarter. Does your printer go through costly ink cartridges like Jennifer Aniston goes through bad boys? Time to upgrade to a printer that’s easier on your wallet, like the new Kodak Office Hero 6.1 printer. This printer is affordable, gives you great quality, and cost-effective ink cartridges, which saves you big bucks in the long run. It also offers must-have features for the wireless household, such as Google Cloud Printing (I can’t be the only one tired of working on my laptop in the backyard and dragging said laptop to the office to print). Visit Kodak.ca to check out Kodak’s new line of Hero All-in-One Printers.

Shop Around. Take the time to shop around to find the best prices, especially on small electronics. When my local electronics store wanted $24.99 and up for iPad cases, I found an online retailer selling them for $14, including shipping! A safety case for my iPhone was also available online for just 25% of the store's price.

Follow these tips to keep your home offices expenses under control (even if the rest of your work from home empire is totally chaotic).
 

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