• 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: Lunch Box Items

    I found a great spot for lunch box items in our kitchen!

    Since the majority of our family packs a lunch for school and work nearly everyday of the week it is important that the items for packing lunches are accessible as well as our time spent putting them together is used efficiently.  As I was brainstorming the different ways to make the lunch packing task more streamlined for our family I came up with a solution that has been really successful for our family.  I found a perfect location for all the non-perishable lunch box items in our kitchen and before long had a lunch box making system that has worked really well.

    Even though these drawers are organized in our kitchen the kids do not get something from each drawer every day. The idea is to keep a small stockpile of items necessary for lunches handy so when I need something to put in their lunch I can get to it easily.  I purchase items for the drawers only when they go on sale so it stays within family’s grocery budget.

    The majority of the week they get fresh fruits & vegetables, water bottles, and no dessert.  I do however try to give them one snack item every day in their lunch whether it be a granola bar or pretzels or something similar in their lunches.  Every day I make a lunch I use these drawers for something whether it is to grab a sandwich container, lunch bag, granola bar or another item!

    Below are the labels I have for the drawers as well as  pictures to show you what I put in them:

    • Granola Bars / Snacks
    • Sandwich Containers / Bags
    • Cookies / Desserts
    • Fruit Snacks
    • Drinks
    • Miscellaneous Snacks

    Granola Bar & Snack Drawer

    I put all the sandwich containers and brown bags into the container drawer.  Even the two new ones I picked up fit well, we had the perfect number of sandwich containers for the drawer!

    Toy Story brown lunch bags (picked up at the Dollar Tree) are  fun to occasionally use for your kids lunch plus they fit nicely beside the sandwich containers in the drawer.

    Sandwich Containers & Bags Drawer

    Cookies & Desserts Drawer

    Placed the fruit in the drawer (applesauce, raisins, cup of fruit).

    Fruit Snack Drawer

    Placed lunch box drinks (with exception to their water bottles) in this drawer (Chocolate Milk, Gatorade, Juice Bags, Juice Bottles, etc…).

    Drink Drawer

    Miscellaneous Snacks Drawer (includes items like pudding or jello cups, teddy grahams, pretzels or other bagged snack item)

    The last several months we have been using this system and it has been very beneficial for the entire family.  Plus if the kids want a snack they can grab a granola bar from the drawer instead of digging through the pantry trying to find a snack.  I do try to keep the drawers stocked and rotate (the newer items go in back so the older items get eaten first) the products in the drawers.

    My best piece of advice is that you find a system that works well for you, if what you are doing is not going smoothly or you want to find a better way to do it try something different and you may be surprised at how more efficient it is for your family. I already had the items on hand all I did was pick up the two containers on clearance around the beginning of the school year.  I would love to hear your tips on keeping all your lunch box items organized and accessible.