When my parents lived in Palm Desert, California, their house was completely xeriscaped. What you don't realize is that every stinking weed seed in the world is sitting there waiting to sprout. Every weekend I visited my dad was out spraying the entire property with herbicide to knock down the weed seedlings. He never used that much herbicide in his life as he had to use in one season with xeriscape. Now, 20 years later, that property has been renovated with grass.
If you want to do something to lower your water usage, please, before you commit to xeriscape, investigate the use of prairie grasses as lawns. Start with a base grass of blue grama and work from there. Some of the prairie grasses look incredible when mowed. Also look at western wheatgrass, streambank wheatgrass, crested wheatgrass, and sheep fescue.
Here is a picture of that mix of grasses along with some strawberry clover up front. This is not an experimental lawn. It is a guy who hangs around Internet lawn forums and wanted to save money on water. His lawn has not been fertilized in years and only gets rainwater (Salt Lake City = desert) and about 4x irrigations per year. I'm drawing a blank on his mowing schedule but I seem to remember he mows monthly.