Do you know what is in your medicine cabinet? Can you find it all easily? Do you open the door oh-so-tentatively, hoping that everything doesn’t crash to the floor? Straightening up your medicine cabinet is a quick job that can save you time, money, and sanity.
First, empty out your medicine cabinet entirely. Take everything and put it on a countertop, on the floor, on the toilet lid, whatever. While you have the cabinet empty, wipe down the shelves.
Go through your medications and get rid of any of the following:
- Medication that has expired. At worst, it is no longer safe to use. At best, it is no longer as effective as it should be. The expiration date should be on the box or bottle. Make a note of anything you want to replace right away so that you have it on hand, such as headache medication or cough drops, but keep in mind that if you had so much that it expired before you used it all, you might not want to buy such a large bottle next time.
- Old prescriptions. Even though we all know we’re not supposed to do it, a lot of people hang on to leftover pain killers and such in case they are needed later. Once you are over whatever ailment got you the prescription in the first place, you should not be keeping the medication. If the problem recurs, go back to the doctor and get a new prescription. This will ensure proper care as well as non-expired meds. If you are not sure how to dispose of a prescription and are wary of just throwing it in the trash, bring it back to the pharmacy.
- Medications no one can use. If your children are no longer infants, you have no reason to hold on to infant medications. Likewise, if you purchased a medication only to find out that you are allergic to it, there’s no point in keeping the remaining doses. You should also not be holding on to medications for people who do not live in your house – things people left when visiting, or bottles from roommates who have long since moved out. Either give it back or throw it away.
- Medications that are temperature-sensitive. Assuming that you have a shower or tub in your bathroom, it periodically gets pretty hot in there. Medications that are sensitive to temperature (usually prescriptions, and the information should be on the label) should not be stored in the bathroom. They may need to be refrigerated, or kept at a constant room temperature. If that’s the case, relocate them to a kitchen cabinet (not above the stove) or to the bedroom.
- Medications you’re not going to use again. If you tried a cold medicine and found it ineffective, you’re not going to use it again, so why keep it? If you switched vitamin regimens, you don’t need to keep what you’re no longer using. And the diet pills that you tried even though you knew the chances of them working were slim? Pitch them.
You may also have a few non-medicine items such as band-aids, hair clips, and toothpaste in your cabinet. A medicine cabinet is not supposed to be long term storage. You only use one tube of toothpaste at a time, so put any backups in a linen closet or cabinet under the sink. Same with your hair spray, mouthwash, etc. Get rid of any empty tubes or bottles (of toothpaste or anything else). Consolidate what you can – if you have several open boxes of band-aids, you may be able to fit all of the contents into a single container.
Try to keep the contents of your medicine cabinet to things you use regularly. You’re not going to dye your hair every day, or even every week, so take the hair dye and move it to the linen closet or another cabinet. Same for hair or skin products that you use infrequently. If you don’t use a product at least once a week, find somewhere else to put it.
This should clear up a good amount of space in your cabinet. Put back what you are keeping, and turn everything so that you can easily see the labels when you open the cabinet door. Group like items together – medications in one place, shaving supplies in another, etc. You may also want to assign shelves to each member of the household so that you’re not picking through other people’s stuff in an effort to find your own. This process should also give you good idea of what you have and what you don’t have, which should save you a few late-night trips to the pharmacy and duplicate purchases.
