We have had it easy for so long, most of us do not even know how to read our water meters. We mindlessly pay the bill without thought of how to reduce the bill. The best way to understand your own family’s water usage is to monitor it by reading the meter. Some even do it daily to develop a better understanding of exactly which activities are the most wasteful. My meter is inside the utility closet outside the house. Now that we have such powerful habits, we only read ours once a month, keeping an on-going record of each month’s use. When we have houseguests, oh brother, more water is used, but that is really their water usage- not ours. They would be using that much back in their own homes, too. We do try to educate our houseguests, however, and they typically make an attempt, although not with the success that we do.