I don’t buy them at all, but then again I don’t buy computer stuff very often, I get 99.999% of what computer equipment I use from garbage cans and dumpsters.
A lot of people online claim to follow this strategy: Buy a cheap color inkjet for less than the cost of the cheapest laser cartridges. Use expensive paper whenever you need good quality output. When the ink pots run out, donate the printer to goodwill and buy a new one - for less than the cost of a new set of ink pots.
(But judging from the number of perfectly good printers in the waste stream, I don’t think they’re really donating the printers, I suspect they’re just throwing them out!)
