Water bills don’t get the same attention as electricity or gas — partly because they’re usually lower, and partly because water feels like something you simply can’t use less of.
Both assumptions are worth challenging.
The average American household uses about 300 gallons of water per day and spends $70-100 per month on water and sewer combined. A significant portion of that usage happens through habits and fixtures that can be adjusted with no meaningful impact on daily comfort — shorter showers that don’t feel shorter, toilet flushes that use less water per flush without performing differently, leaks that waste gallons daily without anyone noticing.
This guide covers the full range of water-saving strategies — from habit changes that cost nothing to low-cost fixture upgrades that pay back in months — with honest information about which ones make a real difference and which are marginal.
It builds on the utility savings strategies from our how to save money on utilities guide and the broader bill-reduction approach from our how to cut your monthly bills guide.
Where Your Water Actually Goes
Before reducing usage, knowing where it goes helps you target the right areas.
| Use | Approximate % of Household Water |
|---|---|
| Toilets | 24 – 30% |
| Showers | 17 – 20% |
| Faucets (all sinks) | 15 – 18% |
| Washing machine | 13 – 17% |
| Leaks | 12 – 14% |
| Dishwasher | 1 – 2% |
| Other | 5 – 10% |
The message from these numbers is clear: toilets are the single largest water user in most homes, followed by showers and faucets. Leaks account for a surprisingly large share — 12-14% — that can be eliminated entirely with no sacrifice whatsoever.
Start with leaks (waste reduction), then toilets, then showers and faucets. Everything else is secondary.
Fix Leaks First — Pure Saving, Zero Sacrifice
This deserves to be said plainly: a leaking fixture is wasting water you’re paying for, delivering nothing in return. Fixing it saves money with absolutely no impact on how you use water.
The Dripping Faucet
A faucet dripping once per second wastes approximately 3,000 gallons per year — about $20-30 on a typical water bill, depending on your rate. A faster drip wastes proportionally more.
The fix is usually a worn washer or O-ring — a $2-5 repair part available at any hardware store and a 20-minute DIY job for most faucet types. As covered in our DIY home repairs guide, fixing a dripping faucet is one of the most accessible and highest-return home repairs available.
The Running Toilet
A toilet that runs continuously — the sound of water constantly flowing into the bowl — can waste 200 gallons or more per day. That’s potentially $50-100+ per month on your water bill from one broken toilet.
The fix is almost always a worn flapper valve — a $5-10 part that takes 15 minutes to replace, as covered in the same DIY repairs guide.
The silent leak test: Put a few drops of food coloring in your toilet tank and wait 15 minutes without flushing. If color appears in the bowl, you have a flapper leak even if you can’t hear it running. Silent toilet leaks waste thousands of gallons per year without triggering the obvious sound of running water.
Outdoor Leaks
Irrigation systems, outdoor hose bibs, and pool connections are often overlooked as leak sources. Walk around your property and check all outdoor water connections — a hose bib dripping at the connection point or a sprinkler head that doesn’t close fully can waste significant water with no indoor visibility.
THRIFTY HABIT #149 Check your water meter before bed and again first thing in the morning without using any water overnight. If the reading changes, you have a leak somewhere in your system. This simple test confirms or rules out leaks before you spend time looking for them.
Toilets — The Highest-Impact Category
Toilets account for nearly 30% of indoor water use, making them the highest-potential category for savings.
Upgrade to a WaterSense Toilet
Older toilets (pre-1994) use 3.5-7 gallons per flush. Standard modern toilets use 1.6 gallons. WaterSense-certified high-efficiency toilets use 1.28 gallons or less.
If you have older toilets, replacing them with WaterSense models saves significant water per flush — 2-4 gallons per flush multiplied by 5-8 flushes per person per day adds up to thousands of gallons per year per household member.
New WaterSense toilets cost $100-300 and are available at any home improvement store. Many water utilities offer rebates for WaterSense toilet upgrades — check your utility’s website before purchasing.
The DIY displacement trick (free): If you’re not ready to replace your toilet, place a filled plastic bottle or a toilet tank bag in the tank to displace water, reducing the volume used per flush. This reduces water use per flush by 0.5-1 gallon with no impact on flush performance — free savings from one afternoon’s effort.
The If It’s Yellow Rule
The “if it’s yellow let it mellow” approach — not flushing for liquid waste — is frugality’s most famous toilet water saving strategy and also its most socially fraught.
The water saving is genuine: skipping one flush per person per day saves 1.6 gallons per person. In a household of two, that’s roughly 1,170 gallons per year.
Whether it works in practice depends entirely on household preferences and living arrangements. For households comfortable with it, the saving is real and consistent. For others, it’s not a habit worth the awkwardness.
Showers — Significant Savings With Minimal Discomfort
Showers account for 17-20% of household water use. The two main levers are shower duration and flow rate — both can be reduced without significantly affecting the shower experience.
Install a Low-Flow Showerhead
Standard showerheads flow at 2.5 gallons per minute (GPM). WaterSense-certified low-flow showerheads flow at 2.0 GPM or less — a 20% reduction in water use per shower with no reduction in perceived pressure for most people.
Modern low-flow showerheads achieve similar pressure through aerating the water stream — mixing in air to maintain the feeling of strong flow while using less water. A good low-flow showerhead is genuinely indistinguishable from a standard one during use.
Cost: $15-40 at any home improvement store. Installation: unscrew the old one, screw on the new one — 5 minutes, no tools required beyond a wrench.
Water saving: at 10 minutes per shower, switching from 2.5 to 2.0 GPM saves 5 gallons per shower. For two people showering daily, that’s 3,650 gallons per year — $20-30 on a typical water bill, plus corresponding hot water energy savings.
Take Slightly Shorter Showers
This is the most obvious and most resisted water-saving tip — and it genuinely works, despite the resistance.
Two minutes less per shower saves 4-5 gallons at a standard flow rate. For a two-person household, that’s 2,920-3,650 gallons per year from a change that most people don’t notice after the first week of habit formation.
The psychological barrier is that showers feel like a fixed amount of time — however long it takes to do what you need to do. The reality is that most showers have padding: warming up before getting in, standing under the water while thinking, slowing down because it feels good.
A shower timer — a simple waterproof timer placed in the shower — makes the time visible and produces immediate habit change. Most people discover their showers are significantly longer than they thought, and trimming two minutes is genuinely easy once the timer creates awareness.
THRIFTY HABIT #150 Install the low-flow showerhead AND set a timer. Both together reduce per-shower water use by 30-40% — more than either change alone. The low-flow head reduces flow rate; the timer reduces duration. Combined, a 10-minute shower at 2.5 GPM (25 gallons) becomes an 8-minute shower at 2.0 GPM (16 gallons). That’s 9 gallons saved per shower, or 6,570 gallons per year for two daily showers.
Turn Off the Shower While Soaping Up
The “navy shower” method — turn water on to get wet, turn off while soaping and shampooing, turn on to rinse — saves the most water of any shower habit change. A traditional 10-minute shower using 25 gallons becomes a navy shower using 3-5 gallons.
It’s a more significant behavior change than a timer or a low-flow head, and it’s not for everyone. But for households comfortable with it, the saving is dramatic.
Faucets — Small Changes, Consistent Savings
Faucets account for 15-18% of household water use — spread across dozens of daily interactions that each seem trivial but add up.
Install Faucet Aerators
Faucet aerators screw onto the tip of your faucet and mix air into the water stream, reducing flow from the typical 2.2 GPM to 1.0-1.5 GPM while maintaining the feeling of adequate pressure.
Cost: $2-8 per aerator at a hardware store. Installation: unscrew, screw on the new one — 60 seconds. No tools required for most faucets.
For kitchen and bathroom faucets used multiple times daily, aerators reduce water use by 30-50% per use. A household using kitchen and bathroom faucets for 20 minutes per day saves 10-15 gallons daily — 3,650-5,475 gallons per year from $10-20 of hardware.
Turn Off the Tap While Brushing Teeth
Running water while brushing teeth wastes 1-2 gallons per person per minute. A two-minute brushing session with the water running uses 2-4 gallons — a household of two brushing twice daily wastes 8-16 gallons per day, 2,920-5,840 gallons per year.
Turning off the tap while brushing costs nothing and requires zero investment — it’s purely a habit change. The water from the tap when you first turn it on and when you rinse is all you need.
Run Full Loads of Dishes
Whether you use a dishwasher or wash by hand, running full loads rather than small ones uses the same amount of water for more dishes.
For dishwashers: wait until full before running. Modern dishwashers use 3-5 gallons per cycle regardless of load size — running half-full doubles your water cost per dish.
For hand washing: fill a basin rather than running water continuously. A filled basin uses 3-5 gallons. Running the tap for the same dishwashing task uses 8-15 gallons.
Washing Machine — Easy Wins
Washing machines use 13-17% of household water.
Wash Full Loads
The same logic as the dishwasher: a washing machine uses roughly the same water for a half load as a full one. Waiting for full loads before running the machine halves water use per item washed.
Use Cold Water
Cold water washing doesn’t save water directly — but it saves the energy used to heat water, which represents a meaningful energy bill reduction as covered in our save money on your electric bill guide. Since hot water use is a component of water heating costs, it’s part of the same equation.
Consider a High-Efficiency Machine at Replacement Time
Standard top-loading washing machines use 30-40 gallons per load. High-efficiency front-loading or top-loading HE machines use 12-18 gallons per load — a 50-60% reduction. When your current machine needs replacement, a WaterSense or Energy Star certified HE model pays back its premium cost through water and energy savings relatively quickly.
Outdoor Water Use — Often the Biggest Opportunity
In households with lawns, gardens, or pools, outdoor water use can dwarf indoor use — particularly in summer months. The strategies here have the highest potential savings of anything in this guide.
Water Deeply and Infrequently
Shallow daily watering produces shallow root systems that need constant water. Deep watering 2-3 times per week encourages roots to grow deep into soil where moisture persists — producing more drought-tolerant plants that need less frequent watering.
As covered in our grow your own vegetables guide, the stick-your-finger-in-the-soil test is the right way to determine when watering is actually needed — not a schedule.
Water in the Morning
Watering in the morning reduces evaporation loss. Midday watering in hot weather can lose 30-50% of water to evaporation before it reaches roots. Evening watering keeps foliage wet overnight, promoting fungal disease.
Morning watering — when temperatures are lower and wind is typically calmer — is the most efficient time, delivering more water to roots per gallon used.
Collect Rainwater
A rain barrel connected to your downspout collects roof runoff for use in the garden. In areas with meaningful rainfall, a 50-gallon barrel fills quickly and provides free water for outdoor irrigation.
Rain barrels cost $30-100 and installation is straightforward. Check your local regulations — some states have restrictions on rainwater collection, though most allow household-scale collection.
Mulch Garden Beds
A 2-3 inch layer of mulch around plants dramatically reduces evaporation from soil, cutting watering frequency by 30-50% in established gardens. Mulch also suppresses weeds (which compete for water) and improves soil health over time.
Wood chip mulch is often available free from tree trimming companies who need to dispose of chippings — search “free wood chips near me” or check Chip Drop (getchipdrop.com), a service that matches tree companies with people who want chips.
How Much Can You Actually Save?
The savings vary significantly by current usage and which changes you implement. Here’s a realistic estimate for a two-person household:
| Change | Annual Water Saving | Annual Bill Saving |
|---|---|---|
| Fix dripping faucet | 3,000 gallons | $20 – $30 |
| Fix running toilet | 36,000-73,000 gallons | $250 – $500 |
| Low-flow showerheads (2) | 7,300 gallons | $50 – $70 |
| 2 minutes shorter showers | 3,650 gallons | $25 – $35 |
| Faucet aerators | 5,475 gallons | $35 – $50 |
| Turn off tap while brushing | 5,840 gallons | $40 – $55 |
| Full washer loads (½ loads → full) | 5,000 gallons | $35 – $45 |
| Total (with running toilet fixed) | ~66,000 gallons | ~$455 – $785 |
The running toilet is the outlier — fixing one can produce $250-500 in annual savings alone. For many households, the toilet fix is worth more than every other water-saving measure combined.
Even without a running toilet problem, implementing the other changes produces $200-300 in annual savings from hardware costing under $50 and habits that genuinely don’t affect quality of life once established.
Getting a Water Audit
Many water utilities offer free home water audits — a service where they assess your water use, identify leaks, and often provide free low-flow fixtures. Check your utility’s website for audit programs or call to ask.
Some utilities also offer rebates on WaterSense fixtures, high-efficiency washing machines, and rain barrel installations. These rebates can cover 25-50% of the purchase cost — making efficient fixture upgrades even faster to pay back.
What’s the water-saving change that made the biggest difference in your household — and did you notice any reduction in comfort? Drop it in the comments!
