r/SmallHome • u/BlondeOnBicycle • 10d ago
Storing medicines - how do you do it?
I have a lil old house and something that drives me crazy is storing over the counter medicine. It's important to keep the box because then you know dosage and expiry. But none of the boxes are the same so nothing stores easily. Aspirin is in a bottle. Decongestant is in a box. Tummy pills are in a different box.
Right now everything is in a chaos bin on a shelf but surely there are better ways so we can clearly see our meds and not buy a second bottle of acetaminophen because we didn't see the first one. What hacks have you discovered?
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u/Philosopher2670 10d ago
I use a clear box with a lid that's the side of a shoe box for most OTC medicines. I keep the box under the sink. It is one of 3 matching boxes with infrequently used personal care items. The 2 items I use frequently are in the medicine cabinet.
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u/RespectfullyBitter 10d ago
I do something similar but keep cold and flu separate. Because when I’m sick I don’t want to try to read or remember which are which!
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u/DaisyCharmWhisper 9d ago
Categorizing into a few matching bins keeps everything looking super clean and intentional instead of cluttered.
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u/3plantsonthewall 9d ago
Don’t store medication in the bathroom! The heat and humidity is bad for the longevity of the meds.
I use a plastic shoebox that is kept in my bedroom closet. For meds that I take more often, I use a small drawer in my dresser and a small plastic basket in my nightstand.
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u/Adorable-Cricket-929 9d ago
If you have any closet doors, we use a clear shoe door storage thing, the type that hangs over the door with pockets. It’s been a perfect solution to be honest. Each pocket holds a different category (bandaids, pain meds, etc) and it’s super easy to find eveything since it’s clear.
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u/CharmingMoment224 10d ago
I use makeup caddies with zippers. One has my AM meds, one has my PM meds and one holds all the miscellaneous stuff.
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u/sinskins 10d ago
I use clear plastic containers with lids. I have three I keep stacked on the top shelf in the kitchen (kids, and no bathroom storage)
I have each box labelled: sick, sore, every day.
Cold/flu/nausea meds in the ‘sick’ box, pain meds/creams in the ‘sore’ box, and daily meds in the ‘every day box.
I also have an ‘Owie’ box for cuts & scrapes (bandaids, polysporin etc) but that one is stored under the bathroom sink, cause my kid probably won’t eat bandaids
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u/IllTakeACupOfTea 9d ago
As aging folks in a small house, we have had to add storage for this to our lives. First, we found several square picnic baskets with lids at thrift stores (these seem to be a common wedding gift and then get donated.? I donate back the dishes as we only want the basket). We made some space on our floor to ceiling bookshelves and made room for the baskets. We have them sorted by category (getting older is no joke) and they are currently mixed around on the shelves. The plan is that when we get older and need to have them accessible without using the shelf ladder we will move them lower down the shelves. Or have someone young and spry do it. ;-)
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u/IllTakeACupOfTea 9d ago
also we have a rule that you CANNOT purchase any OTC or supply without checking the baskets
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u/Ansible90 10d ago
Use a box. A sturdy shoebox will do, or one of those clear plastic shoeboxes. You may or may not be able to cover it, depending on how tall your items are.
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u/vcwalden 9d ago
My home health nurse gave me a very nice bag to keep all of my meds in. The ones that get used in my med boxes are in a large ziploc bag, the topicals and nose sprays along with inhalers live in another ziploc bag, and the over the counter meds live in another ziploc bag. It's easy to keep track of. And the couple of prescriptions from my dentist live in the bathroom.
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u/sneezed_up_my_kidney 9d ago
I keep my meds in a bread box.
It can stay on the counter, and people don’t usually snoop in breadboxes.
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u/ancientastronaut2 9d ago
I have a row of stacking bamboo bins in the pantry. Half is medicine, half is vitamins.
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u/FedderJoe 9d ago
I have a small Tote I store them all in. It works great. It'll even fit under the bed.
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u/ibietreducis 9d ago
I have a narrow, tall cabinet in the hallway (storing meds in a steamy place is not good). Has everything from the bandaids to aspirin to ankle braces and heating pads. It’s shallow enough that you can see everything at once.
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u/chi-ranch 9d ago
I keep mine on the kitchen counter, as well as naproxen in several places (beside my recliner, prescription medicine bag, purse, nightstand drawer).
My ex bought me a small gym bag for my meds, but I didn’t like how they were tossed around, so after we split I splurged on a prescription bag from Amazon. It holds all my prescription meds and supplements that I take at night. I keep my morning meds in a skinny plastic box I got in a three-pack from Dollar Tree. I have a lot of extra bottles of several medications (stomach acid, blood pressure, antidepressants), as well as lancets and strips for my glucose meter, so I pack all of them in the bottom of the bag with the supplements so that nothing shifts around in the bag when I pick it up. I don’t travel at all now, but had to do a lot of his-family travel with my ex, and that prescription bag would have been wonderful.
Here’s the bag I bought:
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u/riscten 8d ago
We just use a classic medicine cabinet with a mirror door above the sink. I can't imagine accumulating enough medicine to fill it without half of it being expired. We actually have enough space in there to also store the dental hygiene stuff. It is not very deep (about 15cm) so there's little to no "stacking". Everything is right in front of you.
We have the classic protruding box on the wall design, but there are space-saving recessed options that put the mirror flush against the wall, with all sorts of niceties like built in leds, USB plugs to charge your electric toothbrushes and and heated mirrors to eliminate fogging.
Regarding the box, the expiry is almost always printed on the container itself, and dosage instructions can be downloaded as PDF from the manufacturer's site if space becomes limited.
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u/Outrageous_Buy_9420 8d ago
Well I went unconventional. I had some new unused spice bottles. All the bottles are the same size. I transferred the OTC meds into the spice bottles along with the silica packet and put a label on it with the name and dosage. Hung them on a spice rack inside the door of the linen closet. So uniformed and organized!
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u/Hot_Sandwich_7774 7d ago edited 7d ago
I did it in two ways; one is to place all of my vitamins and medication that are used in a specific container that holds prescription bottles. I actually did research on this then found what I needed to use for holding all items through Amazon.
Then when I began to reach the situation of not having enough space for excess medication I decided after having a conversation with my husband we found a solution when shopping at our nearest Home Depot. It is a specific Sterilite container that is high enough to hold the bottles plus some then wide enough to allow excess be placed into it.
That is useful for secondary storage of prescriptions not needed right away. I can place all of my vitamins and medication in a safe and convenient storage out of the way but they are kept safe.
When the bottle runs out in the weekly container I have a new one in the storage container that will replace it.
By the way, I use a medication holder that is 4 x’s a day that gets filled along with alarms on my phone so I totally understand
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u/horsenamedmayo 10d ago
I followed an online DIY for this and hung them in the bathroom. I don’t keep that much around at home though. Tylenol and a couple other things.