Join me everyday in February as I share ways to save money on just about anything you need, want, use!
Today we’re talking about saving water to keep your water bill down!
Here are some little ways to make sure you don’t use more than you need:
- Don’t run the dishwasher unless you have a full load. It uses just as much water to wash half as it does to wash a full load. So just wait. (Same for washing machines unless they have a water level setting – mine has a “small load” or “large load” setting for adjusting the water levels. If I must wash just a few things, I make sure to set it on “small load”.)
- If you need hot water for something, don’t just let the water run down the drain while you are waiting for it to get hot. As soon as you turn on the faucet, fill up a pitcher or a container until the water is hot and use this water to water your plants, fill a humidifier or pets water dish, etc.
- Use buckets to catch rain water and use it to water plants with.
- Check for leaky outdoor spigots, indoor faucets or toilets that run too long.
- Turn off the ice maker and go back to the old fashioned ice cube trays. We have an ice maker in our freezer and I throw out more ice (because it gets all stuck together) than we actually use! It would make more sense (and give me more room in my freezer) to turn it off and just use a couple ice trays so we have ice when we need it and not a bucket full of ice we don’t need.
- Take shorter showers. Or, you can shower together. ;) If my husband takes a 10 minute shower and I take a 10 minute shower we’ve just let the water run for 20 minutes. But when we shower together, we are in and out in 15 minutes. Thus saving 5 minutes worth of water. I found this interesting fact online, “A ten minute shower with a regular shower head can use as much as 42 gallons of water. A household of 3 people may take more than 1000 showers a year. This can be about 20% of the typical household’s water usage.” So if we cut out 5 minutes of shower time, we are saving 21 gallons of water per shower!!!
- Install low flow toilets and/or shower heads (installing the shower heads is a simple inexpensive project – more so than replacing your toilet)
Anyone have any other tips you’d like to share?
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