Water Down the Drain

We lose a lot of water down the drain. When I go to take a shower, I usually let the water run until it gets hot. So I lose about a 1/2 gallon of water on every shower. Since there are two of us in the house, that amounts to about 365 gallons per year (assuming one shower each, every day). We aren't living under drought conditions, but that's no reason to waste all that water, and besides it costs money. We're charged about 50 cents per cubic foot of water (1 cubic foot = ~7.5 gallons), which works out to about $50/year. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot of money, but again, there's no reason to put that much money down the drain (hehe).

I was inspired by a post on Radiant Things about how she saves water. Now, when we run the water to get the shower to warm up, we catch the water in an old detergent bottle and use it to water our garden. Maybe it only saves us a little money, maybe it won't save the planet, but really, there's no reason not to.