Welcome back to Digital Decorum, the TechGents blog dedicated to making your technology work for you, not the other way around. Today, we are tackling one of the most common—and most frustrating—money pits in the modern small office: the dreaded desktop printer.

Walk into any big-box office supply store, and you'll see a wall of sleek, Wi-Fi-enabled inkjet printers priced staggeringly low, sometimes under $60. For a small business owner or a home office professional who only prints a few times a month, it feels like a no-brainer.

But as IT professionals, we constantly see clients fall into this trap. When it comes to low-volume printing, the cheapest printer on the shelf is almost always the most expensive one to own. Let's break down the real Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and why it's time to rethink how you buy printers.