From many people like Clark Howard, you'll hear how buying bottled water is a waste of money. Clark says tap water is just as good as bottled water. I say show me some data because I'm not convinced. If you live in rural areas, I would venture to guess that public tap water isn't that great. Bottled water is convenient, but is very expensive in comparison to tap water. I'm not a fan of risking my health by drinking water straight from the tap. Here's an alternate solution to using plain old tap water or bottled water and it saves me a lot of money.
I purchased an "under the sink" filtration system made by Whirlpool about a year and half ago. It's a medium sized filter that installs under the sink on the cold water line that supplies filtered tap water from the normal cold side of the faucet. I'm no plumber, but it was easy to install and came with everything I needed. The lines just snap right into place. The filters last about 6 months or 2000 gallons and cost about $25. I use this filtered water for everything from cooking to drinking. I just refill bottles to take to work.
We drink a lot of water and the savings really adds up! I estimate that with the filter and tap water costs factored in, we spend around 3 cents per gallon of drinking/cooking water. We use about 10 gallons per week for drinking or about 260 gallons in 6 months. With bottled water costs of 79 cents/gallon (on average), that's about $410/year just for water! With our filter, we're paying $25 for the filter and about another $5 for the tap water (I'm guessing... it's probably way less than that). So we're saving around $350/year on water!
Now, if you like plain tap water and enjoy taking risks, you could be saving $60 per year by not having a filtration system. Good luck to you!
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Since the EPA regulates drinking water quality, I really don't think that you would be risking your health by drinking the water from your tap, unless you are getting it from your own well and not treating it properly. That said, I'm pretty devoted to my Brita pitcher. The taste of the water around here ranges from ok to moderately icky, and the filter really does make a big difference. I can't count it as a savings since I wouldn't be buying bottled either way, but it's a small price to pay for
Well, that would make sense in most developed urban areas. I live in a very rural city and there have been times we've lost water pressure and even had some "funky stuff" in the water. This doesn't happen a lot, but it does from time to time and it makes you wonder what happened. So where was the EPA when stuff like that happened?
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