I made a big step toward reducing monthly expenses by canceling our monthly rental fees for the Culligan water service.  This is an excellent service, and we’re really going to miss the water softener and filtration system.  However, we’re taking the whole debt-reduction effort seriously and the tap water is just fine the way it is. 

Make it an easier transition

To get the kids used to the idea we’ve stopped letting them use the little filtered faucet and nobody really misses it anymore.  And we’ve not been by to buy salt for a couple months, so after it’s all removed we’ll barely know it’s gone.  This is going to reduce our average monthly expenses by over $30!  That may not seem like much to some people, but we’re really tight right now and will gladly take a few of these types of reductions. 

Another thing we did that really helped was to start using colorful water jugs with straws that can be washed in the dishwasher on a daily basis instead of buying bottled water every week.  We made this an exciting event for the children with each getting a designated color of their own. 

Part of the routine

Every day, we simply fill up the bottles with tap water and leave them on the counter for whenever they’re thirsty.  After dinner, they make their way to the dishwasher as part of the routine to be ready for the next day.  They’re easily portable for things like soccer games, or going down the street to play on a neighbor’s swing-set.

The savings

The convenience of having a bottle is 95% of the cost of bottled water.  I totally understand why you’d want that convenience, but why should you pay $1+ every time you want it?  Reusing the same $4 bottle hundreds of times can save hundreds of dollars over the course of a year.  Your tap water is practically FREE in comparison to other sources.

Between canceling the water service and not buying 50 bottles of water a week, we’re easily going to reduce our normal monthly spending by $50-60.  Maybe it’s time you considered doing the same thing?

So what type of approaches have you taken to avoid buying bottled water?  Where do you get your normal drinking water from on a daily basis and how much do you spend on it?