Save money on cool, crisp water (part II) Groceries Greg Spielberg / 05:54 PM, Friday, January 08, 2010 / Share /

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Saving money often comes with the non-monetary price tag of downgrading products and experiences. Want to save money on a car? Buy a Yugo. Need to ditch ATM fees? Walk an extra six blocks in the bitter cold. With water, it’s different. I can save money and upgrade the experience by switching to glass bottles. In evolving out of my expensive, wasteful habit of buying plastic water bottles, there were three factors to consider: Taste, portability and price. I considered the Nalgene Narrow Mouth ($12 for an eternity), but I just don’t like drinking out of plastic – even bombproof Lexan polycarbonate. It gets dinged up, leaving the bottle looking dirty, and I feel like plastic never reaches a cold-enough temp. (Have you ever had Gatorade that’s truly an arctic blast?). To me, drinking out of plastic is like eating off of a paper plate. On the other hand, drinking out of a glass bottle is like dining on fine china. The two-dollar (prices may vary), 750 ml Perrier bottle is fine china, and it comes filled with zesty club soda. Now, instead of spending $20 on multiple plastic bottles each week, I buy $4 worth of Perrier a month. That's almost $200 in savings over the course of a year. Once the club soda is gone, I constantly cycle tap water through both bottles, keeping one in the fridge at all times. Unlike San Pellegrino, Perrier caps close securely, making traveling with cool, crisp water easy. Plus I can feel good about saving landfill space for all those Yugos.