Utility Bills and Saving

I have a dream that we move out of our subdivision, and onto a lovely piece of land, use solar and wind power, and have a well instead of city water.

Until that magical day comes, we will scrimp and save and try to manage our bills as best we can.

One way we manager our ever-growing water bill is to put a bucket in our shower.

It's not pretty, but it is HIGHLY functional.

Try this sometime:  Take a large plastic tub that's empty and put it in your shower.  Turn your shower on, and wait until it is up to the proper temperature for you.  Now, look in the tub.  What do you see?  Water that YOU have paid for, literally going down the drain.

Now, I don't recommend keeping a 20 gallon storage tote in your shower.  However, a three gallon bucket is very do-able in most cases.  It's three gallons of water we have paid for, and will use.

I will use it to flush a toilet, water plants (especially if there is no soap in it), throw it into the washing machine, wash a car, mop a floor, the possibilities are endless, really.  *** Keep in mind, this is considered "greywater" and should NOT be used in cooking or drinking, ONLY for cleaning, flushing toilets, anything where it will not be consumed!***  By saving at least three gallons of water per shower we save 9 gallons per day.  It is a tiny savings.  Minuscule, actually.  But every minuscule change leads to slightly bigger changes.  It is the bigger changes that we strive for.  Working for those changes in an imperfectly perfect way.