Cheaper Than Cheap Tip Of The Week #8 : Don’t Flush The Tiolet

Posted by The Happy Rock on May 1, 2009

“Cheaper Than Cheap” is a recurring tip series about frugality. The idea is to provide potentially helpful frugality tips that border on fanatical or fictitious to the point of becoming humorous. Love them or hate them, let’s hear what you think. Tip #7 was Sleep When It is Dark.

If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down

That old adage isn’t just funny and gross, it can really save you money. The point it is wait to flush your urine but always flush the poop. I know it sounds kind of gross, but let’s take a look at the numbers to see if it is really worth it. Let’s estimate that a family of 4 flushes 20 times a day, 16 of which are just liquid waste. They own a somewhat dated toilet that uses 3.5 gallons a flush which is a good average because some older toilets can use up to 5 gallons or more while newer tanks can use as low as 0.8 gallons for pee flushes and 1.6 gallons for solid waste flushes.

If they follow the saying to the literal letter that would save 16 flushes a day or 56 gallons of water. In a year they will save 20,440 gallons of water a year, which at a cost of 0.005 cents a galloon taken from my current bill would save $102 a year.

To put it in a broader perspective, the US as a whole uses 5.8 billion gallons of fresh water a day for flushing and could reduce that amount by over 4.3 billion gallons just by following “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down”.

If you aren’t hardcore enough for the mellow yellow route, you could consider using an empty half gallon or gallon milk jug to convert you toilet into a lower flow toilet.

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Trackbacks/Pings

Just Do It: Flush the Freakin’ Toilet » Pants in a Can on May 2nd, 2009 5:27 pm
Carnival of Personal Finance: Birthdays Edition | Weakonomi¢s on May 4th, 2009 7:22 am

Comments

11 Responses to “Cheaper Than Cheap Tip Of The Week #8 : Don’t Flush The Tiolet”

Double Eagle (26 comments.) on May 1st, 2009 10:40 am

Or, you could just use the great outdoors, or “The Giant Toilet” as I like to call it, and never have to flush again.
Helen (7 comments.) on May 1st, 2009 11:28 am

LOL – wow, you’ve really entered personal territory for me. I used to be a “daily occurrence flusher” myself until I met my Chinese boyfriend who introduced me to this concept. =)

I drink a lot of water, so most times it’s clear, which doesn’t bother me not to flush anymore. But, having been raised in a family of medical nurses, if the accumulation turns too yellow, I have to flush or I start getting the heebie jeebies.

(If this is TMI, I apologize – this is coming from someone who as a child was used to talking about blood, surgical operations, and watching gallstone operations on video during family dinner.)

On another note, I was having problems posting my comment on the Necessity list in the earlier post. The system kept telling me that I had posted a duplicate comment, but there is none?!
fern on May 1st, 2009 4:17 pm

the problem with doing this is that if you let urine-filled water sit too long, the tank gets very dirty and hard to clean.
Mrs. Money (3 comments.) on May 1st, 2009 4:37 pm

We do this at my house. I haven’t noticed any adverse effects from it!
MoneyEnergy (7 comments.) on May 1st, 2009 6:51 pm

Haven’t heard that adage! That pic makes me think, though, you have to keep the seats down because our furry friends don’t understand what the toilet is and they tend to try to drink from it. Even if it’s “just water” they can get really sick from it. But in general, I can see saving the flush for every other “yellow” use.
LPN (1 comments.) on May 5th, 2009 4:11 pm

Ken Livingstone, the erstwhile Mayor of London famously suggested the “if it’s mellow…” phrase and was universally condemned.

I have three young kids and they never flush the toilet so I guess we are doing our bit of saving by default. LOL
Debt Destroyer on May 5th, 2009 6:46 pm

For our household we look at this as a water saving measure more than a money saving measure.

But like fern mentioned above, be sure not to let the yellow mellow too long.
Rinaldo Hasibuan (1 comments.) on May 10th, 2009 4:37 pm

some place in my country still using the river as their toilet,
very very cheap and natural
Krunk (2 comments.) on May 27th, 2009 10:32 pm

Many countries outside of America are already using dual flush toilets, where it uses about 75% less water to flush liquids.

How Dual Flush Toilets Work