Mello Yello

*Warning*

This post is classified under what I would call.....Extreme Frugality! Read with caution!! LOL! This post is SO not about pop.... it's about the other 3 letter P word! I remember as a kid, my maternal Grandma had this saying at her house......."If it's yellow let it mellow...if it's brown flush it down!" Basically this post is about toilet flushing....or rather the lack there of! My Gran was VERY thrifty with her water.....they used grey water (used bath water..... etc) to water their garden AND to flush the toilet. They shared bathwater and reused some of their washing machine water ( they collected it, reused it on other loads or out to the garden it went.) So most times at Gran's house we didn't flush every time. It got me to wondering if that really saved them any money.....I don't think she did it to save money.....more to not waste water.....I think she grew up in the era where waste, even of water, really bothered her. If there had been a bath the night before or that day, they simply left the tub full. Beside the toilet was a bucket...and when the "mello yellow" was no longer so mellow....you would simply take the bucket, fill it with used tub water , dump it in the toilet and that would flush it for you! Out of curiosity I went online to look up the numbers on this. We have a septic tank so we don't have to pay sewer charges on top of our water. Our toilet flushes with 1.5 gallons. It costs us around 8 cents for 10 gallons of water (divide your usage (gallons) by the amount of your bill to get your cost per gallon.) So with my 1.5 gallon per flush toilet..... it costs 1.2 cents per flush. How many times do we flush? That's tricky to know for sure. We have six people (2 adults and 4 kids) I average about 5 per day so I'll just use that for ease sake. 5 x 6 = 30 flushes a day. 30 x 1.2 cents = 36 cents per day to flush. So multiply that by 30 days a month. That's $10.80 per month. Hmmm costs a bit more than I guessed! In a large family I could see that if you practiced the mellow yellow routine.....you could save! Using the grey water saves the most because you don't pay for the water to flush.....but even flushing regular without grey water but skipping a few flushes between would save ya too! Will I practice this extreme frugal tip??? I don't know......maybe......I at least gave it some time and thought....enough to figure out what I spend on flushing!!!! I DID find some systems online that collect the grey water from your sink (from brushing , hand washing etc).....that filter the water then pipe it back into the toilet to flush.....I didn't look too deep into it because I bet they are expensive.....but if water conservation is important to you or your water bill is outrageous maybe it's something to think about! Who knew???