Saving Money on Beverages

One of the keystones of a good weight-loss plan is to drink lots of water. When I first joined Weight Watchers, we had to track the number of glasses of water we drank (6-10 a day recommended).

Drinking water curbs your appetite, eases digestion, and helps flush out impurities from your system. It can dilute the effects of alcohol and mitigate the risk of a hangover. It's the best beverage to quench thirst.

Drinking mainly water can also be a great way to save money on beverages. In restaurants, the mark-up on carbonated and alcoholic beverages, and even tea, coffee, and juices, is huge. In the U.S., most servers will bring you a big glass of ice water at no charge and respect your desire not to order another beverage, which can save you many dollars on your tab. Even fast-food restaurants let you get away with choosing water, although some charge a nominal fee for the cup and ice.

But big business has capitalized on the healthy benefits of water, and has convinced us that we have to buy it in plastic bottles—at prices comparable to other bottled and canned beverages. Americans spend more money per gallon on their bottled water than they do for gasoline!

What happened to good old-fashioned tap water? In most municipalities, the water supply is closely monitored and perfectly safe to drink. In fact, more than half of all bottled water sold to us actually came from someone's tap, and the standards are not always as rigid as for the public water supply.

If you live in a community where the water is suspect or tastes bad, consider installing a filtration system. In the long run, you can probably still save money over the cost of buying bottled water on a regular basis.

And what about all those plastic bottles? Fortunately, there are plenty of programs for recycling them, yet many still end up in landfills. You can drink tap water out of reusable bottles, and help the environment as well as your wallet.

We wash and refill our plastic water bottles with tap water, then chill them in the refrigerator. Once the tap water is cold, it tastes fine to me. The bottles are portable for the car or office, and no one knows I'm really drinking tap water.

It is a good idea to keep a case or two of bottled water on hand in the event of an emergency, such as a water outage or contamination. And have some "clickers" to offer to guests who can't stomach the thought of drinking tap water.

What are your thoughts on bottled water vs. tap water? I would love to hear your comments.

Sharon Marchisello is the author of Live Cheaply, Be Happy, Grow Wealthy.