How tap water pays for my vacations. (Seriously.)

I have a severe case of vacation-brain this week, since I’ve spent the past few days planning our upcoming road trip. (By “planning,” I basically mean we've bought several pounds of beef jerky and a portable DVD player in preparation.)

And, as usual, I’ll be paying for the trip with tap water.

In the past few years, we’ve been to Salzberg, Amsterdam, Key West, Hawaii, Munich, Montreal, Chicago, Reykjavik, Hawaii, and Disney World. That sounds braggy, but my point is that we paid cash for all of them, and we’re not exactly bathing in dollar bills over here. Exhibit A: Um, I’m a blogger. Suffice to say we have a budget. 

But my main vacation-saving secret -- which is a fancy way of saying my favorite way to be a cheap-ass—is that I don’t drink anything but tap water. Well, that’s not entirely true -- I drink a cup of chai with milk every morning. And all bets are off if I come across a pumpkin milkshake or fresh-brewed root beer, but that’s a rare event. 99% of the time, I’m drinking from the sink. When we go to restaurants, I order tap water. At the gym, I refill a Sigg with tap water. At bars, I volunteer to be the DD, and I responsibly order my tap water. (The exception is airplanes, where everything is free and I always order ginger ale, the only acceptable choice.)

Six people (including the photographer). Five beers. And yet I'm the one doing lame hand signs...

I’ve become kind of a connoisseur of tap water. I like how the flavor is always a surprise. I like that you can tell when your glass is dirty at a restaurant. More importantly, though, I like that it’s FREE.

And that’s where the vacation money comes in.

We go to the local diner once a week. Instead of ordering a soda ($2), I order tap water.

$2 x 52 = $104 saved

We usually go out for one “big” meal with friends on the weekend. They typically order three beers each ($5-ish). You know what I’m drinking.

$5 x 3 x 52 = $780 saved

Instead of buying a case of bottled water every week ($6), I bought a Sigg a year or two ago and have been refilling it ever since.

$6 x 52 = $312 saved

I don’t buy soda for the house.

$2 x 52 = $104 saved

A few times a year, we might go into the city for a birthday party or concert or night out. I usually volunteer to drive, because I suck at getting drunk. (That may sound boring. But for better or worse, I don’t have any inhibitions that need lowering. Drunken me is just a slightly dizzier, sleepier version of me.) Four or five drinks at a city bar can run around $50 after tips—assuming we don’t go to NYC where we need to refinance our house to afford a Jack and Coke.

$50 x 4 = $200

TOTAL = $1500

So without my beloved tap water, I’d be sucking down $1500 in beverages each year. Combine that savings with a little bit of Priceline know-how, and you can pay for 10 nights in just about any city.

Figure in the savings from my morning tea ($4/week as opposed to $4 at Starbucks every weekday), and that’s another $832 saved—enough for a plane ticket or two.

Doesn’t tap water sound a little tastier now?

P.S. If soda or beer makes your world go round, you don’t have to hitch your wagon to this particular star. But keep in mind that any change that saves $25 or $50 a week can add up quickly. Read Tim Ferriss' post on Dreamlining if you need some inspiration. If you have a sneaky way that you cut corners, share it!

I don't have a future in extreme couponing.

I'm obsessed with finding ridiculous bargains -- my most recent scores were a pair of Born sandals for $7 at DSW and a pair of Rock and Republic jeans for $35 at Lord and Taylor. So, in theory, extreme couponing should be right up my alley.

But for some reason, the show doesn't click with me, which is a polite way of saying I think those people are batshit crazy. Who needs 48 bottles of Maalox? I don't care if it only cost you $2. I would pay two dollars not to have a Maalox avalanche every time I open the medicine cabinet.

And don't get me started on the stockpiles. No effing way I'm going to convert a spare bedroom into storage for toilet paper and Diet Dr. Pepper. My house cost me about $100 per square foot -- even if it's a small bedroom, that's still $10,000 worth of real estate being occupied by toilet paper.

But even if there's no way I'll ever become a coupon queen, it did inspire me to look through my junk mail instead of moving it directly to the garbage can. Maybe I couldn't become a coupon queen, but I could at least shave a few bucks off my bill at Target. Because let's face it, I could use some financial help when it comes to Target -- I don't know what kind of voodoo magic they do, but I go in for shampoo and end up spending $72. So when my junk mail came, I dutifully scoured the coupon pages and....

It's like a sad wasteland of crappy products, pizza rolls, and hand sanitizer. There was one coupon for toilet paper, but it was the eco-friendly variety, which costs about $6 per individual square. Finally I came across a lone coupon for a product I actually use -- $1 off Tazo's tea concentrate. Woohoo! Money in my pocket! So I clipped it and headed to Target, where I marched directly to the tea aisle, picked up a box of tea, and brought it to the register.

Hahaha, I'm kidding. First I bought a bunch of random crap I didn't need, then I grabbed the tea on my last lap and brought my bounty to the register, ready to spend a mere $71 instead of my usual $72. When the cashier asked if I had any coupons, I triumphantly reached out and...

Where the hell was my coupon?! I'd been clutching it in my talons the whole time we were shopping. How did I lose it?

"Forget it," hubby said. "It's a dollar."

Hmmph. I wasn't about to have my epic couponing mission downplayed like that, so I went all Ben Franklin on his ass -- a dollar saved is a dollar earned! -- and took off on a mad sprint to find the missing coupon. As I was rounding the corner into women's apparel, I had a sudden moment of clarity, a brief flash of myself laying the coupon down to, um, play with the kettlebells. (Did I mention that Target can trick me into buying just about anything?) Anyway, I ran to the fitness aisle and there it was! I snatched it up, sprinted back, and handed it over to the cashier who, along with my hubby, was clearly impressed by my coupon recovery skills.

She scanned it and -- bwommppp. The register beeped angrily as if to say, "WTF was that?" The cashier peered at my coupon, peered at her screen, coupon, screen, coupon, screen, and then --

"Oh, this is for Tazo. You purchased Oregon Chai."

Oh.

"Would you like to run back and see if we have the Tazo Chai?"

"Forget it," I said. "It's only a dollar."

And that was the beginning and end of my extreme couponing days.