Save Money When Brushing Your Teeth

Would you like to hear of a simple way to save money when brushing your teeth?  You can implement this tip instantly to begin saving $50+ a year!

I’m betting you can guess what the money saving tip is, but try reading on to see if you’re following it!

Money Saving Breakdown – Save Money When Brushing Your Teeth!

• Difficulty (Super Easy/Easy/Medium/Hard/Expert): Super Easy
• Average Savings per Year ($/year): 47.48
• Time Required (mins): 5 (freebie)
• Savings for your time ($/hr): 570

 

So, What Can I Do To Save Money While Brushing My Teeth?

As most of you have probably already guessed, the answer is simply turning OFF the sink water while you are brushing your teeth!  Following this simple step can save you money each and every day and save thousands of gallons of water a year!  Let’s see exactly how much you’ll save by looking at the tables below.

 

Turning Off Water While Brushing Teeth – Money Savings Table

Most estimates that I can find on the internet (see here and here) suggest that the average person uses about two gallons of water when brushing their teeth without turning off the water faucet.

Assumptions for My Calculations:

• The average person will save 1.5 gallons by turning off the water while brushing their teeth.
• The Water price is $4.20 per 1,000 gallons.
• The Sewer price is $6.60 per 1,000 gallons.

Alright, along the top we have the number of people living in your house/apartment.  Along the left side we have the number of times EACH person brushes their teeth daily.

See where you or your family fall in the table below:

	# of People in Household
# Times per Day	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	$5.93	$11.87	$17.80	$23.74	$29.67	$35.61	$41.54	$47.48
2	$11.87	$23.74	$35.61	$47.48	$59.35	$71.22	$83.09	$94.96
3	$17.80	$35.61	$53.41	$71.22	$89.02	$106.83	$124.63	$142.44

I highlighted where my family would fall in cyan in the table above.  Fortunately for us, we already turn off the water while brushing our teeth (although sometimes I have to “remind” my wife about it).

For the average family of four that does not routinely turn off the water when brushing their teeth, they are wasting about thirteen cents a day.  That does not sound like much, but it really adds up over the course of a year.  Now, let’s look at how many gallons per year you’ll save if you turn off the water while brushing your teeth.

 

Turning Off Water While Brushing Teeth – Gallon Savings Table

The table follows the same format as the one above.  For our family, we’d waste almost 4,500 gallons a year if we didn’t turn off our water while brushing our teeth.  That’s enough to fill a 10 foot by 10 foot square pool with about six feet of water!!!

If you or your family is not turning off the water when brushing your teeth, see how many gallons of perfectly good drinking water you are wasting in the table below:

	# of People in Household
# Times per Day	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	548	1,095	1,643	2,190	2,738	3,285	3,833	4,380
2	1,095	2,190	3,285	4,380	5,475	6,570	7,665	8,760
3	1,643	3,285	4,928	6,570	8,213	9,855	11,498	13,140

The average family of four that doesn’t cut off the water while brushing their teeth wastes about about 12 gallons per day.  Again, this doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really does add up over the weeks and months, and it is a complete waste of perfectly good drinking water.

 

Summary and Conclusion

It may have already crossed your mind that this water saving tip can also be leveraged to other types of activities.  Here are a couple that I can think of off the top of my head:

• Shaving
• Washing dishes
• Washing your face in the sink
• Showering (more extreme case)

Hopefully you’re already turning the water off when you brush your teeth to save as much water as possible and save money when brushing your teeth.  If not, then this is a great quick tip you can implement today to help you save $50+ a year when brushing your teeth and do your small part to save the environment!