Tidying Up the Medicine Chest

We don't have an actual medicine chest, but I'd love one. An old fashioned one, white metal, with hinges and a clip lock like my Grandad had would be wonderful.

Instead I have a huge old Tupperware box, bright yellow so it stands out, and a couple of toolboxes that we've converted into first aid kits, one for home and one in the Patrol. My sister-in-law says she could do brain surgery with the one in the Patrol, it's so well stocked!

As a part of my usual end-of-year tidy up and restocking, the medicine chest/box/shelf/cupboards get a tidy up, and a wipe out and then I do a quick inventory and check on use-by and best before dates, make a list of what needs to be replaced or replenished and add them to the shopping list.

Apart from the occasional pain relief for a headache and hayfever relief we don't go through a lot of over-the-counter medications.

Simple pain relief such as paracetamol, can be expemsive if you buy the brand names. I usually buy 100 paracetamol tablets for $2.99 from the chemist and that's more than enough to last us the year. Check the use-by date to make sure you have enough time to use them up. At that price, if there are any left at the end of the year, it's not a lot of money going in the bin.

Bandaids are another thing we don't use a lot of, but Ifind the "sticky" can go off over time. During the tidy-up I usually open one and just see if the sticky is sticking. If it's not, then it's time to re-stock with fresh bandaids. I shop around to find the cheapest brandname - we've tried generic and they're slightly smaller all over, with a smaller pad, and aren't quite as sticky. When you're plastering men who all do physical work, rather than desk work, bigger and stickier works best.

It doesn't take long, and thankfully we are pretty much a healthy family and not really accident prone (well I am but that's another story) so keeping the medicine chest under control is easy and simple, and a good thing to do on an annual basis.