So, I have a friend at the office. Ok, more like a co-worker or colleague than a friend.

Every morning, he brings in two empty 2L water bottles, and fills it them up with water from the water cooler. We make fun of him, and tell him that he’s taking cheap way beyond the limit. Way beyond what is necessary.

“Hey, you’re the cheap guy around here. What makes me so different?”

Respecting your time.

You have to respect your own time. I asked him how much is he really saving, by filling up those water bottles and bringing them into work, and bringing them back. They will be lukewarm when he gets home, and for me, warm water is undrinkable water. How much time does he spend doing this, thinking about how to get the water home? What happens when he doesn’t go straight home after work, and instead grabs a beer with us after work?

Why doesn’t he respect his own time? Doesn’t he realize how valuable it is?

Sure, he probably saves $2-$3 a day doing this. Say that there are 250 work days a year, so he’s saving about $5-700 a year. So he’s smart right?

So, for the sake of argument, he spends 20 minutes a day on water. And he saves about $2.50 each day, so that means he’s saving $7.50 per hour.

If he made minimum wage, at $5.15 an hour, this makes perfect sense. He’ll be earning $2.35 more per hour doing this way than doing anything else. And this is BEFORE factoring all those taxes that the government levies on people, regardless of where they are in relation to the poverty line.

But this is a white collar job. He works in an office, and I don’t know exactly what he makes, but let’s say he makes AT LEAST $40,000 a year. That’s a very conservative number. I am going to assume his benefits and his taxes balance each other out, because I can’t (and won’t) get into that much detail here. (It simply isn’t worth my time.) There are about 2000 working hours per year, so his average hourly wage is $20. So, by doing this, he’s actually losing $12.50 per hour.

So it isn’t worth his time.

Bottle water - Not that healthy for you

Bottled water is so expensive, not because of anything intrinsic in the water itself. The water isn’t that different from normal tap water. But the packaging and the marketing is great, and that’s what you pay for.

Bottle water is selling a lifestyle. People who drink bottled water are those who apparently take care of themselves a little better. They have been fooled by the water companies that bottled water is a little more pure and healthier than tap water.

The bottled water is not regulated by the government. There are no real standards in place to distinguish bottled water from tap water. Officially, according to the United States government, the bottled water and tap water are pretty much the same. Do you really know something that the government doesn’t?

Screw the bottle, get a filter

If you really believe that you need higher quality water, then go out and buy a filter. In college, we used Brita filters to filter water, but of late, I hear that a lot of college students now use them to filter vodka. They say that you can take a really cheap vodka, and pass it through a Brita a couple times to make it pretty drinkable.

I guess that’s a good, albeit unorthodox, way to save money.

But nowadays, most people just install filters directly on their faucets. In doing so, you get higher quality water (even better than the bottled water) at a much lower price. A Brita Faucet Filter system costs about $40 on Amazon, and a two filter pack costs $30. Each filter lasts four months, so we’ll just say it’s $70 for the four months, and $4 per month thereafter.

$70 for four months = $18 per month. The first four months will be the most expensive, but instead of spending 20 minutes each day, or an hour and 40 minutes each week, or about six hours a month, we’re spending $18. So that’s about $3 an hour, which is a lot cheaper than the $7.50 per hour rate from stealing water from the office.

And after the next four months, it becomes even cheaper. At $4 per hour, the hourly rate goes down to about $0.70.

Some people never learn.

I guess this is why this person is a colleague and not a friend. I have tried to explain this to him on several occasions, running through the numbers with him and talking about how his business presence is severely compromised with this money-saving habit of his, but to no avail.

He thinks he’s doing something smart, in spite of all the facts I have given him. The point is, you can save money, and be smart about saving money. Going for short term savings in spite of long term losses is almost the definition of cheap, and against the general tenets of thriftiness. (or is it “thrift?”)

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