I was in the shower when I was thinking about The Simple Dollar’s 5 simple water conservation methods and whether they save us money or not. I was contemplating whether or not I could compromise and implement his suggestion of using a low-flow shower head. The savings was obvious – Less water equals less money spent, not to mention conservation of the world’s precious resource.
I thought about the savings, which according to his calculations were about $7 a month. It wasn’t life changing, but it wasn’t an amount that I could just ignore either. I thought about Emma too, who loves taking a really hot shower. It helped reduce her stress, so she claims. The verdict – it wasn’t worth the savings for me.
The thought process carried further, extending to other places where Emma and I don’t cringe. Below is a few that I thought about:
- Groceries – In fact, we started buying higher quality products recently. Organic milk, omega-3 eggs are now common in my house. They definitely cost more, but we are willing to pay more for it if it helps us stay healthy. We always clip coupons and wait for sales but if we really needed to, we rather eat less of it to keep the grocery bills the same.
- Vitamins and supplements – Actually, it’s everything that is health related. We generally don’t worry too much about the fact that these (water filters, prescriptions, eye-care) can become quite expensive because without health, money is without meaning.
- Safety – While we don’t own expensive and exotic cars, we definitely do whatever we can to keep up with the maintenance of our cars. We also have an AAA membership that act as an insurance in case something happens.
- Monitor – I bought a 24″ monitor and while part of the reason why I did it was because of my love for expensive gadgets, I also wanted to save myself from going blind. I look at the monitor more than 10 hours a day and my eyes used to be so tired every evening. Since my purchase, my eyes are better since the monitor is further away and I don’t have to squint to read everything on the screen.
- Mattress – I’ve been thinking about getting those Tempurpedic memory foam mattress forever now. They are expensive (actually, ultra expensive), but I have a pillow made from that company and it improved the quality of my sleep ten-fold. If it can further improve our ability to rest and recoup our energy, it is worth every penny. I plan to buy one once we actually get a house and move in so we can keep our current mattress as we only live in a one-bedroom apartment right now and there’s no space for 2 mattresses.
The list goes on, but here are some of the more important (and obvious) ones that popped into my mind at the time. What are some of the things that you won’t try to save every penny on? Don’t worry about what others think because these choices are just personal.
Ironically, I was thinking about possibly switching out my shower head to a high pressured one a few weeks ago. It all started when I tried one the other day at my friend’s house after a round of golf. For whatever reason, the high water pressure felt good. Instantly, I wanted it, but that’s a topic for another day.
