You don't say how many are in your household. For our household of 2 adults we run the washer when we have a full load and do 5 loads of laundry per week - 2 on Tuesday night, sheets/bath towels together on Saturday morning, and 2 loads on Saturday night. I do a load of rugs every two weeks (I have rugs I can flip over and use the other side). We hang our laundry in the basement to dry overnight. I hang rugs outside. In the winter we also wear more sweaters which don't get laundered after each wearing, and I will wear the turtleneck worn under sweaters 2-3 days before it goes into the laundry, and jeans/slacks are worn 2-3 days before being washed.

Since this 3-month span also represents winter months, do you shower/bath daily? We don't take a shower/bath daily in the winter, and take a sponge bath when we don't. That will also save on water.

Did you do less cooking/baking? There's a big difference between our water bill pre-Christmas when I did a lot of baking, which means more dishes and washing up. Were you gone from home for any of that time?

There could be lots of contributing factors.....

-Grainlady

If you have a front loader (don't know about top loading HE washers) the volume of water used is the same regardless of the actual amount of clothing so it makes sense to fill the washer completely whenever possible.

I would agree with Grainlady in that a lot of clothing doesn't need to be washed after every wearing, especially things like sweaters. I think someone, somewhere wore 1 pair of jeans for an entire year without washing.

If you happen to live in an older home, changing to low flow faucets and shower heads can save water (and the associated energy costs too). As can 1.6L flush or less toilets.

Grainlady- To answer your questions I needed to see where I was willing to reduce water costs. There is 2 in my household but occasionally I will help and wash clothes for my grown children. I need to shower daily- that is something I just need to do to feel I have a high quality of life. DH showers about 4 times a week. I targeted two areas that I could reduce water. I could stop washing two small loads of clothes daily (DH's work clothes and towels for one load, my work clothes and delicates for another) and stop running water when I brush my teeth (6 minutes daily). So now I wait until I have a full load of either delicates or hardy clothes and that reduces my washes to every other or every third day. One simple change to reduce my water costs.

Mike- there is a low flow faucet on my first floor but I prefer my basement shower. It is like Niagra Falls and perhaps a guilty luxury of mine. I think that I am selfish in that way.

acadiafun1-

You can also save some water by catching that shower water that goes down the drain while the water gets hot and use it for washing your dishes or flushing the toilet (use clean water caught while the water gets hot for dishes, and water caught while showering for flushing). If you look down the posts here to "Saving Money on Water" I explain how I store and use this water for doing dishes using approximately 1-gallon of water. "Saved water" is also water I use in the distiller or Berkey for our drinking water and water used in the steam cleaners. Your "guilty luxury" and the amount saved from your husbands showers will probably be enough water to do after meal clean-up and any dishes that don't go into the dishwasher for an entire day using my 1-gallon method. We run our dishwasher once a week.

Do you follow the California "flush" system? "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." That will save you quite a bit of water, especially if you use your shower water for flushing. At our home we do this in the master bath. If the toilet has been used, we leave the lid down as a sigh. We have also used rain water for flushing since we have about 1,000 gallon rain water containment.

-Grainlady

Grainlady I do follow the California flush system as best I can. DH finds it gross so I need to make sure he is gone for the day. lol Your other suggestions leave me intrigued. I wonder how I can "catch" the shower water. Need to research this and if you can direct me to how to do this I would appreciate it.

When I was a kid, once and a while Dad would insist on "Navy" showers. Basically you turn on the shower to get wet, turn off the water, lather up, then turn on the water to rinse off. It does save a lot of water (and the cost of heating the water) but it's not very enjoyable.

acadiafun1-

The water that normally goes down the drain while the water gets warm, before getting into the shower, you can catch under the faucet with a plastic bucket. At our house it is nearly a gallon of water. While taking a shower, simply place as many plastic buckets in the shower as you feel comfortable/safe having in there and they will catch the water as you shower.

Although I'm with mike_kaiser, we take a "Navy" shower, but you can certainly take one as long as you like and off-set it by saving the water falling off you into the buckets for flushing, outdoor watering, etc. I live in Kansas where we regularly experience drought conditions, so we've been water-savers for many years, whether it's a drought or not. It's rare we use our "base" amount of water we pay for, let alone more.

When New guy started spending a lot of time at my home, he told me he needed to do laundry every other day. I was puzzled, and finally was clued in to the fact that he had two work shirts. Exactly two. This was kind of an issue, as I'm on a budget, and water comes from a somewhat limited well.

By the next summer when he was spending even more time, and I had a new washer. I told him it was silly for the washer to be run every two nights, when he could just buy three more shirts. It turned out he actually had more shirts, they just needed to be mended or have the stains treated.

I almost wish I hadn't purchased that particular new washer. It's a front loader, but absolutely huge. If I put two pairs of pants in it, all New guy's shirts, all the underwear and socks for a week, a week's worth of washcloths, it's almost full. It irks me to run it when it's not.

Grainlady- of course! Silly I didn't think of that so thanks. :) I actually tried the Navy shower, brrrr......I got cold quick. lol.

oldgeezer- I hear you. I did not used to think twice about running small loads of laundry because the HE washer is supposed to use less water, but now that I've changed my ways it bugs me to run a small load.

Mike, my front loader measures the load size and uses water accordingly. I'm not sure if other brands are the same or different. Even for those using a full water fill up no matter the size of the clothes load, most front loaders will still use much less water than the old style top loaders. And, they do a better job of washing the clothes.

I agree with your other suggestions - spending some bucks for low use toilets and replacement of faucets and shower heads with newer low flow models can often reduce water usage at these points by more than half.

In my drought-hit area, a substantial percentage of residential water use is for landscaping because we get essentially no rain from April to October. The severest cutbacks being discussed by the state and water districts are easily achieved by restricting outdoor watering.

As far worrying about this or that gallon, or not taking showers when one desires to - life's too short. Saving a penny here and a penny there still only adds up to pennies, not dollars, and for most people, such small efforts aren't worth it.

Snidely,

Hmmm. The old front loader (Kenmore/Frigidaire/Electrolux) just filled with water and based on my casual observation was the same amount for any size load. The new one (Kenmore/LG) takes about 10 minutes to fill and futzes around with some small movements of the drum and spritzes of water. Maybe it does somehow calculate the amount of laundry...

Our Fisher/Paykel GWL10 Ecosmart (purchased 11/2001) has a precise auto water level sensing, or you can choose H/M/L levels. The auto water level sensing will use less water. At the time, it was America's "Most Energy Efficient Washer" according to tests done 12/1999, and why I purchased it. That, and I was allowed to take it apart in the showroom and could do many of the repairs myself (one minor repair and two new sets of hoses is all it's required). This purchase was just before the big push for eco-friendly front-loading washers. It's average water consumption was tested at 26-gallons. It has a 3 cu. ft. stainless steel tub and can wash a king-sized comforter.

"If you find 20 tiny ways to save 5-cents a day, you saved $365 a year." (Quote from Brandy @ theprovedenthomemaker.com) - the lady who can feed her family of 6 children, hubby and herself for 40-cents each per day.

Just as we exponentially increase spending in all areas of our lives, we can put it in reverse. Examples: Measuring, instead of eyeballing -- whether it's ingredients in a recipe, laundry detergent or detergent in the dishwasher. Realizing half as much of something will do (Heinz said it wasn't the ketchup people used that made them rich, it was the ketchup they left on their plate.) In other words, it all adds up.

Mike, even on a very full load, a complete fill-up for my washer (a Miele) is probably just a few minutes in total, done in perhaps 30 second increments. For partial loads, the fills are still multiple but are shorter in duration. Except on gentle cycles, the water is no higher than the very bottom of the front glass window.

The current energy star standard for washers is 13 gallons per load. I'm sure my washer (purchased in April of 2001) uses rather less than this.

grainlady, I think we've discussed this before, no need to do so again. Saving pennies is saving pennies. If the woman you cite needs to be so frugal on her food budget because of limited family means, what made her think it was a good idea to have 6 children?

Some people need to be careful because of limited family income, others may do so because it becomes an end in itself. There's a big range of possibilities in between being carelessly wasteful and being obsessively extremely frugal. Everyone is free to choose what feels comfortable for their own conduct. One size does not fit all.

Snidely,

I have no idea what the darn washer is doing for ten minutes but it seems an absurd waste of time. Not to mention the constant cycling of the fill valves has to shorten their lives. The old one filled continuously then agitated for 5 minutes or so and the filled again for a short period for the addition of bleach. I've opened the door of the new one after it's stopped filling and there isn't much water in there at all; the clothes barely seem wet. They come out clean so I guess it works...

Now if they could just make one without a million cycles, bells, and whistles. Without looking I think there's 10 options with some additional possibilities for each setting like water temperature, soil level, and extra rinses. Yet I can't seem to wash anything with hot water. Does laundry really need to be this complicated? The dryer is the same way.

Grainlady,

40 cents per person, per day. Uh huh. I think Stalin spent more than that on prisoners in the gulags. {lol}

Stalin had the extra money to spend, because they only needed to furnish one-way transportation (no round trip tickets were issued). Plus, they saved money on water because the living quarters had no toilets, dishwashers or top loading washing machines.

It's up to each person to find their level of "frugal" due to their circumstances. It's not a one-size-fits-all situation. The old "walk a mile in my shoes" kind of thing..... Read Brandy's story at theprudenthomemaker.com and you might change your words of condemnation to being thankful you've never had to live on so little, and be amazed at her resourcefulness.

Since this is a Money Saving Tips board, and saving water is just one aspect of where we can save, here are more "A penny saved......" ideas.

-Eat less-expensive food, or eat smaller portions of it.

-Use disposable items less frequently, or not at all.

-If you can't afford to pay cash for something, it really doesn't matter "how good of a deal" it is, especially if you purchase it with a credit card and end up paying interest on it.

-Eat soup once a day as a main course. Eat vegetarian meals a few times a week.

-Learn how to glean free-for-the-picking food, and how to garden (even a small container garden can yield a lot of food).

-Don't ever run to the store for one item. Learn how to adapt with a substitute.

-Will half as much do? Use less than you think you need, or can you get more than one use out of something (two to three cups of tea from one tea bag).

-Look for less-expensive options. Frugality is a vehicle for ingenuity and creativity.

-Embrace a DIY lifestyle.

-Find new uses for old items.

-Use passive cooking methods (solar, thermal cooker and other thermal cooking methods like a homemade Wonder Oven or Haybox) and save on utilities.

-If you don't particularly care for an inexpensive food, like oatmeal as a cooked cereal, find ways to fix it that you do like - make oatmeal into granola, bars, cookies, scones, pancakes.....

As someone once said, "Frugal activity should ideally be: EFFECTIVE, EFFICIENT, and ENJOYABLE."

As before, I looked at the website you cite. I really don't understand many of the decisions and choices that woman has made. I don't think her approach and lifestyle offer much that most people would want to emulate. WIth all the time she says she has for the website, you'd think she'd try to find a job that pays money for her efforts. If her household has an income deficiiency, that would make a greater contribution to her family's well-being than taking flower photos for a blog page. Another way would be to not continue having children they can't afford.

I think some of your ideas are reasonable. But I can't help but wonder if your game is really to advocate an ascetic lifestyle. Eating less? Sure, that's a good health decision. But something like "If you don't particularly care for an inexpensive food, like oatmeal as a cooked cereal, find ways to fix it that you do like" is really pretty extreme. Are you really suggesting people must eat what they don't like solely because it's cheap? You won't find too many takers for that.

Money is no good if you don't spend it or use it for something worthwhile. Saving just to save doesn't make sense.

You don't want facial hair in any body crevices, for example.

But if you shave using that water after washing your ...uh... body crevices ... that doesn't seem too hygienic. What's the correct sequence? Or is it an impossible puzzle?

Back in my day most of we Submariners had beards - while no one else in the Navy was so permitted. But, even with the beard there was the need to periodically shave some areas.

Quite the enigma, eh?

Frontloader washers do vary the amount of water used per the load size. They have a pressure sensor to regulate the fill level same as toploaders. The clothes absorb water until saturated, which amount varies per fabric type and load size. The additional water beyond saturation is what triggers the pressure sensor so the overall volume varies accordingly. Some machines have a flow sensor that measures how much total water was required to trigger the pressure sensor on the first fill (when the clothes are initially dry), which data is used to calculate how much longer to run the water for cycles that fill higher such as delicate or bulky items, or for the final rinse if it also fills higher.