For most of us cleaning out the medicine cabinet isn’t on the top of our To-Do lists as we try to manage our homes. But, it is a very important area to periodically de-clutter. Out of date medicine can be dangerous if left in our cabinets to be consumed. It’s a good idea to go through all of your medicine every few months to see if there is anything that has expired.

I haven’t been the greatest at keeping up with my med’s. I have to admit that when I did my purge a couple weeks ago, I found medicine in my closet that had expired in ‘95! Wow. How embarrassing. This stuff has been taking up space in my home for the past 13 years for nothing!! (Oh, how time flies.) I need to be better about staying on top of things!

I wish I had taken a picture of how much stuff I ended up throwing away. It was enough to fill up my bathroom trash can. I couldn’t believe how much of the stuff that I had been hoarding was actually just trash. And with all of the stuff that I’ve collected from CVSing I was quickly running out of room in my closet.

If you are like me, and haven’t cleaned out your medicine cabinet in a while, here are some suggestions of things to get rid of:

• Obviously, if there is anything that is expired, you should toss it. However… I do not toss pills that have expired, only liquids. Pills actually have a very long, and useful life beyond the manufacturer’s expiration date. Check out this article I found for a little more info. This is just my suggestion.

• If you have more than one bottle of the same pills, see if you can get all of the pills into just one bottle. I found two opened Tylenol bottles in my drawer, that were exactly alike. I was easily able to put all of the pills into one bottle. Even if you have two new, unopened bottles of the same stuff, after taking out the cotton balls inside you still probably have room to put all of the pills into one bottle. Just make sure they are exactly the same stuff. This is a great way to save space.

• Take things out of their box. A lot of times the product inside is a bit smaller than their box. This is another good way to save space. Here is a picture of one thing that I was able to take out of it’s box to save on space… see what I mean? Big size difference.

• Just because it was free doesn’t mean you need to keep it. If you know you probably won’t use it, get rid of it. Give it to someone else who could use it, sell it at a yard sale, donate it… there are lots of ways to make these items more useful than just taking up space in your home.

Here’s a look at my medicine drawers. Glad it all fits in here now!

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, I want to see how you did! Post your pictures on your blog and come back here and share them with us all! Minimizing our homes, one section at a time… I’d love to have you join in!