Organized Chaos: Health & Medical Supplies
Organizing Our Health & Medical Supplies
Do you ever open the medicine cabinet for a bandaid or to get Tynenol for a child’s fever or something else and either everything falls out of the cabinet or you cannot locate the one item you need? I love to get items on sale, clearance, or with a coupon but it is usually not reasonable to stuff everything in the same cupboard in the kitchen and hope that you can find it when you need it. You don’t want any health or medical items somewhere young children can get ahold of it, it’s not food so the pantry isn’t really a great option either. Since all the items don’t need to be in the cupboard at once (do you really need 2 to 5 boxes of the same bandaids in the cupboard all at one time) you could store them someplace accessible yet out of reach.
Here are some more pictures on what is in the containers.
Health & Medical items organized on the top shelf on my husbands closet
The spot I discovered that works the best for our family is at the top of my husbands closet (thanks honey for sharing your closet space). He was super sweet and redid our closets with the wire adjustable shelving which makes it much easier to store items in the closet. For several years any extra items would be put in a box and stored on the top shelf of his closet. Whenever we needed to get something we had to lug the entire box down and go through it to see if we had what we need. I decided it was time to make it more accessible and user friendly. I bought clear plastic containers at Dollar Tree, put all the items from the big box into the containers, labeled the containers, and re-stacked them on the top shelves of his closet.
Far Left Stack
- Liquid Prescription Medicine
- Non-Liquid Prescription Medicine
- Medical Equipment Equipment – Blood Pressure Monitor, Stethoscope, etc…
If you notice out of all the stacks this one is the hardest to get access to (and for a good reason). Many of the items in this stack are prescription based and in order to get anything out of this stack you have to move at least one of the other rows. I intentionally put this in the hardest to reach place because these items shouldn’t be used as much and you don’t want someone to accidentally grab the wrong thing thinking its cough syrup.
Middle Stack
- Allergy Medicine
- Headache / Fever
- Tums / GasX / Stomach
Right Stack
- Cold Medicine
- Cough Drops
- Liquid Cold Medicine
Organized Health & Medical Items
Having the health and medicine organized has made the whole system much more efficient for our family. If we are out of bandaids I go into the closet, get the bandaid container down, and restock the bandaids. If I notice one of the containers is getting empty I will put that item on my list to look for in the sales fliers and on the clearance shelves. Once a container is full I no longer buy any more of that particular item until we need it again because what we have in stock should last us several months. This system has helped us save time, money, and energy. It is much easier finding what you need, to see what needs restocked, you don’t waste money on items you already have at home, and it looks so much better too
Left Stack
- Miscellaneous – items that don’t fit into any of the other categories or ones that we typically only keep one extra of since we don’t go through them as quickly
- Vitamins
- Heat Pads
Right Stack
- First Aid
- Bandaids
- Gauze / Medical Pads
This system has worked very well with our family. I think it is important that you find what works best for your family and go with it. It didn’t take me long to get this set up and it has been a huge time saver ever since we started using it. I would love to hear how and where you store these types of items in your home?
Organized Chaos: Organizing Our Stockpile
I LOVE getting a great deal but over the last couple of years when I find a good deal the more I find myself asking “Do I really need this?” Yes, using coupons are wonderful and getting a great deal is amazing only if you are going to use those items or plan on giving them away. A friend introduced me to the show “Extreme Couponing” and after a few episodes I could no longer watch it. The amount that some people had stuffed in various places in their home was too much for me to even watch. After some thought I decided to come up with a plan to organize my stockpile in a way that would give me a visual indication that our family’s stockpile is full plus keep the items organized in a way that anyone in my family can find an item, including the kids.
Here is what I did:
- Reorganized our Linen Closet to make room for the stockpile bins.
- Purchased inexpensive containers from the Dollar Store.
- Used the Label Maker to put the description on the front of each container.
- Filled the containers with items from the stockpile.
- Once a bin is full then I know it is time to stop buying that item
- Any extras items that I get for free I put into a separate box to be given away.
The new system had to be practical for our family. I think it is wise to be good stewards of what we have been given and find opportunities to share what you have with others. I decided that if I had enough of a certain item to last our family for 6 months to a year our stockpile is considered full and I didn’t need to purchase any more of those items. If I did get a couple items for free they would be put in a special box to give to others (charities, school, church, people in need, friends, family, and anyone else that may need an item from it).
I have been using this system for several months now and I am really pleased with how it works. It is easy to know when the stockpile is full enough for your family and it is more efficient when someone needs to locate an item. The majority of the items in this closet are office supplies, school supplies and miscellaneous household items. I love having the freedom to take a few weeks off from using coupons, shopping, or getting deals in general because I know exactly what I have on hand and when I have enough for my family.
