Being Creative with the Needs: Money, Money Down the Drain

Every week, I haul a load of groceries home which includes a few gallon-sized water jugs. The tap water in our town is extremely suspect. And believe me when I say that I'm not one of those picky, tap water hating people, it's just that our town has a lot of issues right now and the aging water treatment plant is not at the top of the city's priorities list right now.

It occurred to me today, as I did my weekly grocery shopping, that buying my water this way is probably not very cost effective. We had a mounted water filtration system on our faucet years ago, but it broke and I never could scrape up enough money to go out and buy a new one. Plus, I was being lazy.

As I ponder this purchase, let's consider the golden question: Is this a 'Want' or a 'Need?' Water is a obviously a need. My options are to suck it up and drink tap water, buy those gigantic refillable jugs of water from a water station, get my water from the grocery store, or get a faucet system. The first option is out. The second option is out, too--we have no room to store one of those large jugs in our tiny apartment. I'm currently going with the third option and flirting with the idea of the fourth. Let's go to the numbers...

On average, each gallon of water is $1.00. Some weeks it varies and can hit all the way down to $0.89, but most of the year it's pretty consistently at $1.00.

On average, I buy 3 gallons of water per week.

That's an average of $3 spent per week on water.  In a month (say 4 weeks to make it easy), I spend $12 on water. In a year, I spend around $156 on water.

I hit the recycling center around once a month and get some cash back for all of these gallon jugs of water. In my state, each jug gets me $0.05 back. If I recycle all 12 jugs each month, I get back $0.60. Don't spend that all at once.

So, on average, in considering my recycling, I spend $11.40 on water every month and around $148.20 per year.

Hey, filtered water is a necessity in this town.

The PUR 3-Stage Vertical Faucet Mount + 4 Replacement Filters Pack that I am considering is $48.99 (the cheapest place that I've found this pack is on Amazon. Coupled with my Amazon Prime membership, shipping is free).  Each filter pack has a life that lasts about 2-3 months and gets you around 100 gallons--all together the four packs should get you through one year or around 400 gallons.

400 FREAKING GALLONS.  That makes me angry that I've been toting around those heavy gallons of water every week.

Right now I am paying $1.00/gallon, whereas with the mount I would be paying $0.12/gallon. $400 for 400 gallons or $48.99? Or, how about more realistically (as who knows if I'd actually get a whole 100 gallon life-span out of each filter), $148.20 per year or $48.99 on water?

If I buy the mount, in four months I will have already made up the cost of the purchase in savings thanks to no longer having to buy those plastic jugs.

It's decided! I will take a look at my budget for December and see if I can sneak it in this month. If not, come January I will be the proud owner of a money-saving new faucet mounted water filtration system. What a luxurious life I lead. With almost $12 per month more in my bank account, I'd say that's pretty luxurious.