I got tired of this too, so I bought into a continuous ink supply system (CISS). You do some minor modifications to your printer by removing the existing cartridges and inserting ones with tubing leading to ink reservoirs. For my Epson R260 I would spend ~$30 for about 50-100ml total of ink in non OEM cartridges. About 1.5 years ago I bought the CISS system with 100 ml of ink in each reservoir for about ...$35! I haven't run out since.
Occasionally, I need to reprime the "cartridges" when I haven't used the printer for awhile. Only real problem was when I had to replace the chips that make it run ($15) when they quit a year ago. Don't know why they stopped working, but no problems since. I figure I've more than made my money back with this system.
Mine is similar to the picture below, bought from EBay, but have seen it on Amazon too.
