If your medicine cabinet is an eyesore and you have a whole bunch of pill packets, jars and boxes falling over and out onto you then you can not only organise it, but save money by knowing what you have and what you need to replace.
The first step is to sort.
Make sure you have about 30 to 40 minutes of uninterrupted time to do this, and ensure there are no small children around who can access the tablets and be accidentally poisoned.
Sort your packets, prescriptions and bottles into categories. You can sort each person's prescriptions into their own category, and then other medications into categories such as pain relief, stomach ailment relief, allergy relief, topical creams, vitamin supplements, natural remedies and first aid supplies. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but will of course depend upon you and your family's individual needs.
Prescription forms can also be kept in a file. I keep all my prescriptions down at the local pharmacy, and when I am nearing the end of the medicine supply, I can call ahead to have the prescription made up for me to pick up later, or have it delivered.
Sorting through medications into categories will help you also identify out of date medications, which need to be disposed of at the pharmacy. It is important not to use out of date medicine because many medicines have a storage shelf life, after which they may be potentially hazardous.
The second step is to organise.
Once you have your medicines and first aid supplies sorted, and have disposed of your out of date supplied safely, you can get ready to organise them into storage.
A permanent marker and some small plastic baskets and a first aid box are all useful for storage of medicines. A cupboard that is inaccessible to small children is essential, or a locked box or locked cabinet that is free of a moist environment can be used also for medicine storage.
Bathrooms are not ideal spaces to store medicines as the moisture can compromise some medical supplies.
Once you have appropriate storage space, organised some small category containers and either a permanent marker or some labels, then you are ready to store.
The final step is storage.
Storage of medicines in a safe place out of reach of children is essential, to stop a child from potentially being poisoned.
Once you have acquired and labelled your containers according to categories, place each medicine packet or container into its appropriate box or basket.
It may be viable to store first aid supplies separately so that the box or bag can be taken to wherever it is needed.
Place all labelled boxes or baskets into the safe cupboard or locked cabinet, and then your job will be done.
Since organising my own medicine cabinet I have realised I do not need to keep purchasing pain relief products, as I already had a number of boxes, and had kept purchasing more because they had gotten disorganised.
I can now find pain relief in a pinch!


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