While most people’s thoughts (and blog posts) are about romance and roses today, my thoughts are firmly planted in the practical and somewhat mundane. Which is how to save money on my water bill. This is another “extra” to pay, as at the old place the water was a flat rate included in the rent. And since moving in here it’s like I’m being “20 euroed” to death, as several times a week I have to go and pick up something for the new casa az that ends up costing 20 euros. Things like energy-saving lightbulbs, a new showerhead, dish draining tray thingy, kitchen light fixture… the list goes on and on. Some things I’ll be reimbursed for by the landlords but others are just the expense of moving somewhere new and finding that new things are needed.

Then today I finally made it over to the water company office to change the name on the water bill (they wouldn’t let me do this over the phone for reasons too boring to recount) and I found out they are going to charge me 78.50€ (!!!) to do this. I mean seriously WTF?? Nog worked this out to about 800 euros an hour in terms of actual work involved. Gaaaah!!

And so saving money is on my mind. Nog also informed me that the most water-consuming activity is probably flushing the toilet, which got me thinking about, well, not flushing after every visit to the loo. Do any of you do this? It actually makes sense, like not running the water while brushing your teeth (which I stopped doing when I moved to Sevilla during a drought in 1993), but it also feels a bit unhygienic. I mean obviously this would only be after “number ones”, and perhaps we’d flush after about four visits. Does anyone know if this would actually be helpful in terms of cutting down on money spent and water consumption?