There is a theme I am hitting on right now, and it’s Drinking Water Month. So, here are some very quick ways to get an indication on how your drinking water stacks up.

1. Check your ice cubes. If they are cloudy, you may have a water issue.
2. Take the sniff test. Does your water have an odor? Is it similar to a swimming pool smell? Or a rotten egg smell?
3. If you have a pet, pour some water from a bottle in a bowl and some tap water in another bowl. If your pet chooses to drink the bottled water, you may have high levels of chlorine in your tap water.
4. Make a cup of tea with bottled water and one with tap water. Put the teas in a glass. If the tap water tea is darker than the bottled water tea, then you may benefit from a reverse osmosis (RO) drinking water system.
5. Track how much you spend each week on single-serve bottled water. If it’s more than $5 weekly, you could put a virtual “bottled water plant” under your sink for only pennies a glass.

Written by Peter Raisch