Save $600 By Drinking The Crappy Water That Comes Out Of Your Sink Faucet

"How dumb do I think the Americans are?" - Jim Gaffigan

The other night I accidentally watched a TV commercial.

I know, I know. But I was fumbling for the remote and the DVR and I let one sneak by.

The spokesman (“Jim” from The Office I think) was trying to sell me a PUR Water Filtration System, one of those pitchers you fill with tap water, leave in the fridge, and forget to refill. I tuned out most of it, as my attention was fixed to the couch cushion and the thrilling, impending conclusion of “I Shouldn’t Be Alive”, but a single sentence at the end of the ad actually caught my attention: “Save up to $600 a year when you switch from bottled water.”

$600? I want $600! But the observant and cautious consumer in me was skeptical of such claims.

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Years ago when my wife and I moved in together, we always seemed to lean in favor of bottled water. The pitchers were bulky, filters were expensive, and it was a pain to fill in our small sink. We’ve since been buying cases of Kirkland Signature Drinking Water from Costco and haven’t looked back. Maybe it’s time to revisit this decision?

I did some head math on this $600 savings claim and it quickly dawned on me: am I really spending over $600 a year on drinking water! What the hell?

I got distracted once my show came back on (they lived), but a few days later I remembered the commercial and I did some deeper investigating. Sure enough, on PUR’s website, the $600 claim sat with an anticipated asterisk. “Comparing annual capacity and average price of a PUR pitcher filtration system and 9 refills based on filter life expectancy to corresponding number and average price of 16-ounce water bottles.”

I’m skeptical, but alright. Let’s try it. Fire up Excel:

Assume I need the recommended 64 ounces a day of water (8 x 8 ounces). I can get a PUR Pitcher on Amazon for about $20, and 3 filters for another $20. I looked around PUR’s site, and a FAQ mentioned the filters lasted 40 gallons, meaning I’d only need about 4.5 filters a year. So this leads me to think their claims are based on a 2-person household, equaling their 9 filter per year fine print. So with the pitcher and 9 filters, there’s an initial $80 investment in this system.

Tap water is dirt cheap. The average cost in the US is $2.81 for 1,000 gallons. Assuming two people need 365 gallons of water in a year, the cost of the actual water is only $1.00. Yes, you read that correctly. Tap water is cheap. VERY cheap. In fact, for this approximation, it’s pretty much negligible.

So all together, the PUR Water Filtration System costs about $81 a year for two people.

We currently get a case of 35 bottles of water at Costco for about $4. Each bottle is 16.9 ounces. Between the two of us, we should be drinking about 7.5 bottles a day (which we don’t), or over 2700 bottles a year. This equals $316 a year.

Dammit Jim Halpert. I’m overpaying $235!

Now this ain’t the $600 savings they claimed, but it’s definitely something. Actually, to save $600 a year, you’ve have to be paying $0.50 a bottle, which is big stretch. But PUR made their point. Guess what I’ll be buying next weekend?

I think the take-home statistic here is this: for every case of water you buy at Costco, you’re paying the equivalent of 8 years of unfiltered tap water for yourself.

Next money-saving step: Getting rid of cable.