Make Over Your Medicine Cabinet

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Flu season is here, so today I’m going to share some tips for making over your medicine cabinet, in preparation for the season of sickness!

Last year was a difficult one, so this year I’m trying to be prepared. Over the summer I managed to forget how sick we were last winter, but when my son came home coughing after being back in school for about one day, I remembered!

Make Over Your Medicine Cabinet

It feels so good to purge and organize, and your medicine cabinet is a great place to start. It’s small, you likely have little emotional connection to the items there, and it should only take a few minutes!

#1. Throw away expired medicine

This is the first step to making room in your medicine cabinet. If it’s past date, just toss it. It’s a good idea to do this a couple of times a year, so you know what you need to stock up on.

#2. Get rid of old prescriptions

If you’re like me, you have old prescription medications still hanging around, most with one or two pills in the bottle. Those are just taking up space and would be unsafe to use in the future, so they need to go! Most medicines should be thrown away in the trash, but some are recommended to be flushed down the toilet, so read the labels and see if there are any special instructions for disposal.

#3. Buy in bulk

How many times have you needed a certain medication and had to go to the store to buy it, rather than having it already on hand? I have personally made 3am trips to the store because I didn’t have what I needed! When you have a variety of medications “in stock,” treating symptoms is faster and easier. When you have little ones, you want to stop their pain or head off that cough right away!

Carter and I made a recent trip to Sam’s Club to stock up on necessities for the flu season!

We came home with medicine for kids and adults, as well as a supersized pack of antibacterial cleaning wipes, to keep the germs in our house at bay!

#4. Put the medicines where you’ll need them

We have two bathrooms in my house- one in our master bedroom, and one next to the kids’ room, which is the one the kids primarily use. So I keep the children’s medicine in their bathroom and the adult medicine in ours. That way I know where to find what I’m looking for.

#5 Color code medications

Some pharmacies offer services such as different colored caps or bands to identify which medicines are for which family members. Want an even cuter, DIY way? Use washi tape!

You could also establish a certain shelf for each member of the family, if your family members use a lot of personal medications. And while you’re at it, why not pretty it up with some scrapbook paper or sticky vinyl, so it looks pretty when you open it?

I hope these tips have helped inspire you to get your medicine cabinets organized and ready to tackle whatever this season sends your way!

Originally posted November 4, 2014