How to Save Money on Your Water Bill

Whether you’re looking for eco-friendly ways to use water or aiming to lower your water bill, conserving water offers a ton of benefits to your wallet and the planet. The EPA estimates that Americans use around 82 gallons of water per day and the average family’s water bill adds up to more than $1,000 every year. Luckily, you only need to make a few efficient changes to knock a few hundred dollars off that figure. Keep reading to find easy tips for using less water and reducing household water costs.

Best Water-Saving Home Coupons in 2025

Check for Leaks

You can save up to 10% each month just by fixing household leaks, and it’s the easiest way to save on your water bill. Look for leaks at least twice a year and give your toilets, faucets, sprinklers, and pipes a thorough inspection. To check your toilets, for example, put a drop of food dye in the toilet tank and watch to see whether any color shows up in the bowl after 10 minutes. If it does, then you have a leak. You can also tighten faucet and showerhead fixtures to ensure they don’t drip water throughout the day or install a smart leak sensor to alert you when unusual water usage is detected.

Invest in Water-Saving Appliances

Opt for eco-friendly upgrades for appliances like washing machines and dishwashers to save water. Many major brands offer water-saving appliances carrying the ENERGY STAR label, which means they meet the EPA’s standards for energy and water efficiency. Even though these appliances cost more upfront, you’ll save more money in the long run. An average family can save $350 per year on their water bill by using ENERGY STAR-certified appliances.

Switch Up Water Usage Habits

Pick up small water-saving habits to see major decreases in your water bill every year. Using the garbage disposal less often, taking shorter showers, and soaking dirty dishes before washing — in short, reducing the amount of time you spend running the water in your daily routine — are all great ways to approach this. According to the EPA, the average shower uses more than 16 gallons of water, and that’s just for an eight-minute shower. For a multi-person household where all members take daily showers, that adds up.

Use a Simple Hack to Make Your Toilet Eco-friendly

The Princeton Student Climate Initiative estimates that toilets typically use about seven gallons per flush, but you can conserve water without buying a new commode. Fill up one or two single-use plastic bottles with water and place the bottles in your toilet’s water tank. The bottles will displace the water in the tank, which means your toilet will use less water with every flush. Even better, you won’t spend extra money to implement this ingenious water-saving method.

Look for Water-Saving Fixtures

For maximum water bill savings, replace your toilets, faucets, showerheads, and sprinklers with ones carrying the WaterSense certification. Like the ENERGY STAR label, anything marked with WaterSense is EPA-approved for daily water conservation. You’ll save a ton of water if you switch out all your fixtures for water-conserving ones. For example, low-flow toilets only use 1.6 gallons of water instead of the standard seven gallons. If you replace all of your faucets in your home, you’ll cut out 700 gallons of water from household use per year.

Recycle Water at Large Scale

If you’re serious about saving water, consider installing a greywater system. The Department of Energy recommends greywater systems, which allow you to take wastewater from your showers, washing machines, and sinks and use them for other purposes. The water goes through filtration and treatment to make it clean enough to reuse, then it’s kept in a tank for future use. Once you need to use your toilet or water the lawn, you’ll use the greywater instead of pulling from a municipal water source.

Keep Plants Efficiently Watered

Use water-saving crystals on your plants to prevent overwatering both indoor and outdoor plants. They’re also a smart solution to keep plants perfectly watered, even in heat waves and droughts. Home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s usually carry them, and they’re fairly inexpensive.

All you need to do is mix the crystals into the soil and reduce your water usage. If you’re not sure whether your plants are getting enough water, touch the soil to check for dampness. With the crystals, you can use one-fourth the amount of water you usually do for gardening. Plus, it’ll be easier to maintain a healthy garden.