Have you had a good look through your medicine cabinet lately? Or ever? If you made a list of areas to declutter in your home, chances are medicine cabinet decluttering would be at the bottom of the list, if it made the list at all. This week in the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge, we take on this important but often-ignored area.

This post was originally published in May 2021 and republished in May 2024.

When I set out to declutter my medicine cabinet, I honestly thought I wouldn’t find much to get rid of. I was about to learn otherwise.

Are you ready for week 20? Let’s get decluttering!

What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?

In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.

• 52-Week Decluttering Challenge
• Week 1 – Easy Decluttering Checklist

You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.

Week 20 – Medicine cabinet decluttering

To start, let me be honest. I openly admit to having rolled my eyes at some of those decluttering checklists I’ve seen on Pinterest. You’ve probably seen them, too. Lists like “100 things you can declutter from your home right now”. Some of the things on those lists include broken items and expired medication. Seriously? What kind of hoarder would keep that stuff?

Expecting this to be a quick and easy task, I took everything out of the medicine cabinet. Then, I was very surprised at what I found.

What I got rid of

In total, I got rid of 25 items out of our small medicine cabinet, and 16 of those items were expired! Some of them expired almost 20 years ago. So, it turns out I’m that kind of hoarder who has expired items sitting around. Yes, this was definitely a long-overdue task. The funny thing is, I was sure I had cleared out the medicine cabinet sometime in the last couple of years. Maybe that was a dream.

Here’s the list.

• 1 empty medication box
• 1 manual
• 2 expired prescriptions. One of them was from 2003! Did I mention it had been a while since I emptied out my medicine cabinet?
• 9 partially-used packages of expired over-the-counter medication
• 1 pill container
• 2 expired and unopened tubes of bug bite treatment from a multi-pack that I thought was a good deal
• 1 medicine spoon
• 1 diffuser
• 2 lice combs and 1 set of lice tweezers (EWW – I don’t miss the days when my girls would bring the dreaded “a student in your child’s classroom…” letters home from school!)
• 1 package of thermometer covers for a thermometer we no longer own
• An expired bottle of calamine lotion. I think we bought it when my older daughter had chicken pox when she was in kindergarten. She’s 21 now!
• 1 expired bottle of witch hazel
• 1 expired tube of pain relief rub

This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

Here are some tips and learnings for this week’s medicine cabinet decluttering and organizing.

• Location matters! Where is your medicine cabinet? Many people store medications in the bathroom, but that’s not a great location. The best place to store medication is in a cool, dry place. Our medicine cabinet is in our bedroom closet, far away from the heat and moisture of the bathroom.
• Dispose of medication safely. Don’t just throw old or expired medications in the garbage or flush them down the toilet or sink. Safe disposal prevents contamination of our soil and water supply, and it reduces the risk of discarded medication being accidentally consumed by children or pets. If you live in Canada, you can take unused medication to any pharmacy for safe disposal. In other countries, ask your pharmacist about safe disposal options.
• Buying large quantities doesn’t save money. While that large multi-pack might seem like a good deal, consider how much medication your family uses. If you end up throwing half of it away, buying smaller quantities will save you money in the long run.
• This should be an annual task. This is a great example of a decluttering task that should be done every year. After I get through this year’s challenge, I plan to print another copy of the 52-Weeks of Decluttering and Organizing List and do a 15-minute declutter of one area every week.

Finally, I learned I need to temper my hoarder comments in future.

Although not a big task, this was one of my more productive decluttering exercises. I’m amazed how empty the cabinet is now. Only 16 of the original 41 items remain. I got rid of 60% of the contents of our medicine cabinet! Not a bad half hour’s work.

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2024 Update

It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.

I didn’t expect to get rid of many items from our medicine cabinet this time around, so I was surprised to find 10 items, including 3 expired boxes of COVID rapid tests, and several other expired items.

So that’s week 20 done.

If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!

When was the last time you had a good look at what’s in your medicine cabinet? Tell us below.