Day Five of Our Quest

Here are some of the things I found today!

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Money/Saving-Money/Sneaky-Ways-to-Save-Big.html
This is a great article from Woman's Day Magazine that covers lots of ways to save money. Some of the ones that I really liked are:

Trick your toilet

If you have an older 5.5-gallon flush toilet, you're using 13,000 gallons of fresh water per family member a year. But you can reduce water consumption and your water bill without springing for a low-flow (which uses 3.5 gallons) or a new ultra-low-flow (ULF, which uses only 0.7 to 1.6 gallons a flush).

Fill a clean container (a quart plastic bottle is a good choice) with an inch or two of sand or pebbles. Then add water, put the cap on, then place it inside the tank safely away from the flushing mechanism. The toilet should flush fine, you'll use less water with every flush and you'll send less money down the drain. Don't know the capacity of your toilet's tank? If it was installed after 1993, you likely have a ULF.

We personally already have a low-flow toilet but I did use this trick before we had one!

Then a reader posted this:

SAVING WATER

Place medium sized bowl under the bathroom basin faucet, and catch the water from washing hands or face, hand wash laundry, brushing teeth, etc. When you flush the toilet, immediately empty the bowl of used water into the toilet when the water gurgles out, and no new clean water need be used to refill the toilet bowl. I keep two bowls handy to catch water from uses that may exceed the capacity of one bowl. If you are willing to empty the bowl into a bucket, about two-thirds of a bucket will flush the toilet, saving even more water.

I have done this and we have also used pitchers to catch sink water that we used while waiting for the water to get hot to water plants, water the dogs, fill our 55 gallon fish tank, and cook with. We just set the pitcher beside the sink in the kitchen and fill it up as we used that sink (I had a smaller one for the bathroom).

Now that I reminded myself that we are not doing these money saving things, off I go to find those pitchers!