I don't use our printer enough to keep the cartridge from drying out but discovered something that works for me virtually all the time. I first wipe/clean the cartridge head with isopropyl alcohol then, and this is the fun part, hold the cartridge head in a stream of steam from the spout of a rapidly boiling kettle for 5 or 6 minutes - in essence, a steam cleaning. I then test it on a paper towel to see if ink comes out. If it does, dry the cartridge, install in printer, and print away. If not, repeat the process. Don't burn yourself. I can't think of a single time where this didn't work for me.

I was told to take the cartridges out, put scotch tape over the heads, place them in a plastic bag and put them in the refrigerator. We've done this with success.

Sometimes, if you place the ink cartridge on a few very wet paper towels for a few minutes, the moisture seeps up into the cartridge nozzle and moistens the dried ink, which might help it to dispense the ink again. It's always worth a try.

Save the caps that come on them.That might help.

I have had the same problem. The solution I used was to buy a Brother laser printer. You can get a basic model for less than $100 on sale. Replacement cartridges can be purchased online very inexpensively. The number of pages that can be printed on one cartridge is more than with an ink jet printer.

Even the cheaper Brother laser printers can do duplex (two-sided) printing.

Buy more ink, or don't leave for the summer

I agree with Kathy. I've owned the Brother HL-2250DW laser printer for a few years now and it's a great printer. Wireless so you can put it in any room in the house and and you never need to turn it on or off as it just starts up automatically when you send a print job to it. If you don't need color, this is the way to go. Actually, if you need color, they have color laser printers too. Toner cartridges cost more but they last much longer. It will actually save you money in the long run.

Win1894 has the answer except I have never steamed. The dry ink is on the cartridge and not in it unless the cartridge is really old. Wiping with alcohol solution will work in most cases.

Of the inkjet printers I have owned before switching to laser, the Canon's were the best at recovering from dried ink. I never had to run more than one or two cleaning cycles. The Epson's, on the other hand, have been terrible. I've had to recycle at least 5 of them over the years. No amount of cleaning cycles would work. I even tried the various alcohol and paper towel cleaning methods and things just got worse. So, if you want to stay with inkjet, Canon is a good bet.
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bc

One thing you CAN do with an HP wireless printer (and probably most other brands), is you can print a page remotely. All you need to do, is have cloud print running from your phone or laptop or whichever device you have with you at the time. Once a month, e-mail your printer a single page of something. It can be a coupon, or a picture, whatever you want, as long as it makes use of whichever cartridges are in the printer.

It'll print out that one page, every month. When you get home 8 months later you'll have 8 waste pieces of paper, and perfectly useable ink cartridges in your printer.

You'd also have to still have the electricity turned on.

Laser printer
 

I tried it all. Even bought the same printer for both locations, wrapped the cartridge in saran wrap and moved it back and forth with me so it was never out of use. The next problem was: if one color ran out you had to buy a whole new cartridge, it wouldn't even print in black.
enough already. I bought two laser printers that only print black, if I need color I'll print it at Staples...or try the Rec center as someone suggested. in a year I haven't needed color