Water conservation part 1

For many homes in the Northeast, it's fairly common to have a basement. Also common is that most have excessive amounts of moisture during the summer months. So from May to Octoberish I run a dehumidifier 24-7 to collect the excess moisture. Usually I empty it every night and collect about 5 gallons of fresh water every 3 days. Out of curiousity I wanted to figure out how much water I am salvaging basically out of thin air. So here's what I came up with.

May 1 - Oct 15: 168 days
168 / 3 = 56 days
56 days x 5 gallons = 280 gallons of water saved!

That's alot more than I thought. That's alot of free water that went directly into my garden. Especially helpful this year when it has been a very dry summer. The big question is other than water am I saving more than I am spending when you take into consideration the cost of running the dehumidifier. I'll figure that out in part two.