Friend learned the hard way when his barrel overflowed and ruined his patio.

That rain barrel idea is smart, makes me think of when I tried composting last year. Got one of those countertop buckets for food scraps, but man, figuring out the brown-to-green ratio was a whole thing. Ended up with a soggy mess more than once, lol. Felt good when it finally worked though, like you said, a small win.