Sometimes you weigh various factors when deciding which area to declutter next.
Sometimes it just hits you over the head.
(Almost) literally.
I’ve been doing a decluttering/organization project most Thursdays. This morning, as I deflected falling cups and medicine bottles, I decided that this kitchen cabinet would be today’s project.
I started by removing the cups and glasses. The stuff that’s actually supposed to be in there. When I was done, it looked like this:
Go ahead. Scroll up to the before picture. Then down here again. Then back up and back down.
You’re not missing anything. It really doesn’t look like there’s any difference.
Medicines have taken over. And (I’m so thankful that) we are a relatively healthy family.
I started removing things, and quickly became overwhelmed. Medicine is good, right? If we need it, like . . . in the middle of a stormy/icy/whatever night, not having ANYthing already in our cabinets could prove deadly, or at least annoying.
I quickly realized that ONE of my problems was the number of plastic bags we had taken on various trips. I’m sure after each trip I rationalized that putting the entire bag in the cabinet would life easier when it was time to take another trip.
But it didn’t make life easier. Definitely not in the time between trips, because of the impossibility of keeping the bag-pile straight, but also not during prep for other trips.
You know, since there were at least six different bags. This means five of them were prepared while there were others already “ready to go” in the cabinet.
I debated over keeping similar, but not exactly the same, medicines.
Do I keep the medicine that is hubby’s second choice when he runs out of Ibuprofen? Especially when just yesterday I bought what seems like it will be a lifetime’s supply of Ibuprofen at Costco?
When I saw that the aspirin expired two years ago, I decided to get rid of it. That decision helped me realize that if I gave myself a simple guideline of automatically tossing anything that was expired, the majority of my decluttering decisions would be made for me.
After purging the medicines, and replacing the cups and glasses, it looked like this:
I didn’t even attempt to work on the top shelf. I was going for functionality and just wanted to stop the glasses from falling out. Most likely, the majority of the stuff up there could be purged as well.
I’ll be linking this up to Orgjunkie.com for her 52 Weeks of Organizing.
Looks good. I have an empty plastic storage tub in our dishes cabinet with medicines scattered all over the place shoved in between bowls (wasted space…those square dishes designers are on to something there!) on all 3 shelves. Last time I looked in the tub I found infant (my kids are 3 and 4.5) ibuprofen, a tube of antifungal cream, and some cough medicine which doesn't work and I shouldn't give my kids anyway…
You should have hubby do the top shelf! Who wants to drag a chair around just to work?? ha!
The medicine cabinet is my downfall(well, one of them). I hate the thought of throwing away perfectly good medicine because that stuff is expensive and when you need it, ya NEED it. But we have several bottles/boxes of medicine that has only one or two doses out of it. What's worse is that I don't throw medicine out when it expires. Most of it is still good once expired, only the potency isn't as strong(my family pharmacist of 20 years told me this).
But I sometimes use this as an excuse to get rid of old stuff. If its 2 years out of date and if bought it at least a few months before it expired, then I probably won't need it. Why keep it another 2+ years?
I recently got rid of a bunch of medications also. It was crazy how old some of them were! Plus I got rid of 2 boxes of expired birth control. I will NOT be taking any chances with THAT kind of expired medication!!!
I look forward to seeing the top shelf transformation.
I have the bags of medications for travel, at least 5 of them, and all of them are basically duplicated, and expired, but I have in my bags what you seem to miss in your bags..the little first aid kit with all different sizes of bandaids,gauzes,medical tape,cleansing wipes neosoporin type cream,benadryl type cream for bee stings/bug bites, and no first aid kit is complete without the cute little packets of tylenol/aspirin!
I used to have a medicine drawer and after a few weeks of looking for meds that I knew we had and not finding them I bought a bunch of small plastic containers and labels and sorted all the meds then moved them into a cupboard all their own. It makes it so much simpler!
Even I am having the same problem with my medicine drawer but the idea of labels and sorting will work I think.
Yes, You are right. It's a messy job otherwise.
I use the if it's expired throw it away rule. Sometimes they still work, but not very well. Expired neosporin doesn't work at all from my experience. I try to go through my cabinet once in the spring and once in the fall. I also only buy stuff that we use on regular basis and only buy what I know we will use in a 3-6 month time period. Then if we need something else I buy it at that time. I found by doing it that way I don't throw as much away and then I am not throwing money away either.
I did this with my medicine cabinet last winter. I'm not normally a packrat, but for some reason the pill bottles need a good purge every now and then. I can't seem to let go of them in a reasonable amount of time.
I so get the temptation to leave traveling medications in their neat plastic baggies…and then forget all about them. The last time I did a clean out, I found four pair of still sealed, sterile contact lenses in a bag I'd put aside for a trip. They were expired. I didn't even know contact lenses *could* expire. Around this time is when I found your blog…
It's looking good! Isn't it funny how Henny Penny moments inspire us?
It always amazes me how time flies and products expire. Sometimes I highlight the exp. date to make it easier to see at a glance.
We used two of the wooden boxes that used to have Clementine oranges in them. One for medicine and one for first aid stuff. Much easier to grab the box a paw through it instead of knocking things over. Also keeps things contained to limit what we have. There is a smaller basket on the counter with the things we take every day.
Haha. I needed a good laugh. Have not had one today. I was going to say keep both pain relievers because you never know when DH may come down with pneumonia and need both kinds, or Tylenol and one of those……I know of what I speak!
haha! we used to keep medicines in the bathroom cabinet, which was huge, so i had a mess. then hubby made a medicine cabinet so i have finite space now! i had to consolidate like crazy. threw stuff out, etc. … could not believe how things expired!
When I saw the after picture, I wondered about putting the medicine bottles in a box or basket, and keep it on the same shelf (like KellyJMF's idea above). I know stacks like those tend to be knocked over a lot when I try to go through them! Then a few days later I saw Amy's (Resourceful Mommy) post, and thought about your cupboard again! That might help the collection not to grow, since you have a specific space to work with, instead of things spreading and reproducing! And I'm thinking about ways this could work in my home as well.
Good progress on the cupboard…I can tell that it is your glasses/cups cupboard now!
Nice progress. I know it has been ages since you posted about this. If your closet still looks like this, I would take it one step further. It would be easy to fix. Put medicines (that are not expired) in the same baggies that have the same uses. Pain relievers, cold meds. stomach relief, cough syrup all get a separate baggie. Then I would place the baggies in rows in a clear plastic shoe box from the dollar store. The shoe box goes on the shelf and it is all contained till the next illness strikes. Now you won’t be fumbling around to find what you need when searching for relief.
In our master bedroom closet, I have 2 canvas bins for medicine. One is labeled pain relief, so iburporfin, tylenol, muscle rub, ace bandages, band aids etc go in there. The other is labeled cold/flu so otc allergy meds, sudafed, cough syrup, tums, pepto bismal & the thermometer go in there. The bins might not look pretty on the inside, but we can quickly and easily find what we need.
I’m thankful for the honesty and all the blogs. Sometimes I wondered if this struggle was my weakness. Thank you for the honesty and solutions. I’m grateful! !!!!!!!!
I need to point my mother to this. I recently went through her medicine cabinet and tried to throw out expired medicine. I was less than successful, because I made the mistake of doing it with her in the room. “Oh, it’s still good. It’s just not as effective, so you need to take more!”
I *did*, however, manage to throw out the cough syrup I was prescribed. When I was 8.
I’m 36.
My youngest is 9.
(You do the math! LOL)
(If you ever mention this on the podcast, please don’t mention me by name. She listens to it as well! 😀 )