Tag Archives: cheap

A Spooktacular History of Halloween!

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On Tuesday, Halloween, the one day a year where you can wear the scariest or silliest costumes outside and look (fairly) normal was celebrated again. Many people celebrate this tradition, but very few know about the origins of the celebration. Why is Halloween celebrated? How did the traditions we know today evolve over time? And why is it even called Halloween? Keep reading to find out!

What are the origins of Halloween?

Halloween’s origins date back to an ancient festival celebrated by the Celts (the largest single group of these people were from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall) over 2,000 years ago called “Samhain”, according the The World Book Encyclopedia. During this celebratory time, the Celts believed the dead would walk among the living and visiting the deceased was possible.

A black silhouette of a cat sitting on a tree branch in the glimmer of an orange moon.

How did costumes, candy and trick-or-treating come about?

Some sources claim that the Celtic people would often wear ghoulish costumes to keep spirits away, making them mistake them for other spirits, while other Celts offered spirits sweets.

During the medieval period, the Catholic Church (despite it conflicting with Bible teachings) adopted these pagan customs and church members went from house to house wearing costumes and asking for small gifts. Creatures like ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches or zombies are popular costumes to wear, since they’re all connected to evil, the spirit world or the supernatural.

Jack-O'-Lantern glowing in the dark

Halloween Jack-O’-Lanterns originated in medieval Britain, where dressed-up Halloween celebrators would go door-to-door asking for food in return for prayer for the dead and a hollowed out turnip with a candle inside, representing a soul in a purgatory. According to some sources, these lanterns warded off evil spirits. In 1800’s America, more available and easy to carve pumpkins replaced turnips, and that’s how Jack-O’-Lanterns came to be.

Why do we call it ‘Halloween’?

Samhain, the Celtic festival from which Halloween originates from, means “summer’s end”. It marked the start of the dark winter season and was celebrated around 1st November. Around the years 700-800 A.D., the Christian Church established All Saints’ Day, also called All Hallows’ (also meaning “saint” or “one who is holy”). The evening before this event is known as All Hallows’ Eve or, when abbreviated, All Hallow’een, later becoming the celebration we know today as “Halloween”.

A glowing pumpkin in the foreground with a creepy, crooked manor with its lights on inside and a graveyard outside in the background.

The history of this annual tradition is very interesting, especially considering that it is over 2,000 years old! Halloween is an ancient celebration with a seriously spooky origin story.

If you wish to contact us about anything, you can visit our store or see our Contact Us page here. You can also call our number or get in touch with us on our Social Media Accounts. All links and information will be provided at the end of this Blog Post.

We hope this Blog post was useful to you and we encourage you to come back every Friday, when we post new content on our Blog!

Our social media accounts: Twitter | Facebook @Inkntoneruk

Address: 61 East Barnet Road, Barnet, EN4 8RN

Tel: 020 8216 5571

Branded Ink Costs – Calls to Investigate

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Some printers can use up a lot of ink, which can have an effect on your wallet. Buying Original Branded Ink Products can be quite costly. However, a cheaper alternative to these big, recognisable brands are third-party printer ink brands.

Branded Inks vs Third Party Inks

A survey by Which? Magazine asked more than 9,000 inkjet and laser printer owners about their experiences with printer ink brands – both Original brands and third-party brands. Similarly to previous statistics, third-party brands came out on top for value with both ink and toner cartridges, while the big brands were ranked at the bottom of the results. The third-party brands with the highest consumer score was 87%. The bottom four brands out of the 20 brands to choose from in the survey – in descending order – were Brother (66%), Canon (62%), Epson (58%) and HP with the lowest score (56%). These huge brands offer amazing printing quality, however, the high prices of these Branded Ink Products cause customers to rank bigger brands lower down and they feel like they’re not a value for money.

Ink Cartridge Head Non-OEM

Moreover, third-party printer inks are a good value and contrary to popular belief, won’t break your printer or be of a lesser value. Which? Magazine’s survey found that out of 3,000 Which? Members who use third-party inks, only 4% experienced compatibility problems and only 1% had leaky cartridges. Most third-party brands also offer guarantees if a cartridge doesn’t work. Some may even replace your printer in the unlikely situation that a cartridge causes irreversible damage.

Tank printers can be a good cost-effective solution for many. Tank printers contain built-in ink reservoirs which are filled with bottles instead of cartridges. Bottles are much cheaper and last longer than cartridges. Some tank printer models tested by Which? Cost less than £4 a year, whereas some cartridge printers can cost more than £100 a year!

Branded Ink Companies Under Pressure

Which? has called for action over pricey printer inks and an investigation into “dynamic security”, which especially puts HP under pressure. Some of HP’s printers prevent customers from using third-party inks, which are often blocked by HP’s ‘dynamic security’ (used to lock out better value supplies).

InknTonerUK offers both Original and Non-Original products. Here’s just one comparison of the same product with only 1 difference – one is Original and the other is a Non-Original Product. We encourage our customers to buy the best value product and take time to look around our site for the best offers for them and compare. Here’s the Original and Non-Original HP 304XL Ink Cartridges compared:

Original | Non-Original

If you wish to contact us about anything, you can visit our store or see our Contact Us page here. You can also call our number or get in touch with us on our Social Media Accounts. All links and information will be provided at the end of this Blog Post.

We hope this Blog post was useful to you and we encourage you to come back every Friday, when we post new content on our Blog!

Our social media accounts: Twitter | Facebook @Inkntoneruk

Address: 61 East Barnet Road, Barnet, EN4 8RN

Tel: 020 8216 5571

Electricity Bills going up!

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As you may already know, our electricity bills are increasing. Should we aim to live our lives like everyone else in the 18th / 19th century? The most reliable times being when electricity was just invented and social media never existed… any power cuts? You could still read a newspaper; still write letters, submitting your homework by hand etc. Not to say that either of these are bad things, it is just better to be reliable, especially when you have an important task to complete. The good thing about investing in paper is that you would not be facing any of these issues when the electricity bill increases.

Light Bulb

Not only is electricity bills increasing but also due to inflation, everything has gone up by 5% in the market. Realistically, it feels like the inflation has gone up by 20%! This has influenced everyone greatly by this, whether you own a business, work in a business or if you are just a buyer. Why not save some money and invest in compatible cartridges? Whether you need to print your homework or even photocopy your documents! We value your time and money because we always aim to consider our customers and do our best to assist you on buying the best-valued products on our market/industry.

However, how can you tell if an Ink Cartridge is a compatible?

On our website, we label the compatibles through the titles of the product. You may miss this, so the best way to identify a compatible cartridge is from the box design. You’ll notice that original cartridges will have all the details including the logo. However, the easiest method would be to type in your printer model or cartridge on our search or quick finder. When you do this, all of your options should appear. Look for the compatible cartridge and when you do that, adding your cartridge to the cart should be straight forward. You could save yourself money and your compatible inks will fit into your printer the same way as originals. The quality is almost identical, you are saving the planet and you get more prints!

Here are the most popular Ink and Toner cartridges that may fit well with your printer;-

  • HP 12A (Q2612A) Toner Cartridge
  • HP 21 C9351 Inkjet Cartridge
  • Epson 603 Ink Cartridge (Starfish)
  • HP 65 / HP 304XL Cartridge

The list goes on…

We sell all the originals too. If you want to be safe and still rely on original cartridges there’s still the option to do so too. We hope that this blog helped in terms of affordability and time management.