Vitamin Storage Ideas: How To Organize Your Supplements and Medication The Simple Way

In this guide, vitamin storage ideas, I will share with you simple ways on how to store and organize your supplements, medicine and vitamins. You probably have a vitamin nook that can be found somewhere in your kitchen area. You allotted a certain kitchen space like one corner of your kitchen counter or dedicated one kitchen cabinet to store the different vitamins, supplement bottles, and medication for the whole family to easily access them. However, this often leads to either making your kitchen counter look cluttered or making your daily pills and other dietary supplements hard to access when all other medication are stored and shoved in one cabinet. When this happens, taking your vitamins and prescription meds can be a daily struggle.

So, it is important to store your daily capsules in an efficient way so you can gain relief from this daily struggle and to keep your kitchen clutter free.

Vitamin Organization System

1. Gather All Your Vitamins, Prescriptions Meds and Other Dietary Supplements that are stored around the house and do the following:

• Gather all of your capsules, pills, medication and other supplements and place them in one area like your dining table or kitchen counter. Then examine the expiration date of each medication while also considering its condition.
• Appropriately dispose of all expired medicines and dietary pills. For those medications that are in poor condition like torn packaging and other issues, dispose of those as well. Below are the FDA recommendations for the disposing of an expired prescription, over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and supplements:
• Remove the contents from the original containers and empty them. Remove all of your personal information from the medication container or packaging to preserve your identity and privacy before you throw the packaging away.
• Combine the expired items with something unpleasant such as dirt or coffee grounds to make these items undesirable to children and animals and unrecognizable to any person who may intentionally go through the trash looking for drugs. Next, place the mixture inside a re-sealable plastic bag or empty bag that will keep the contents from spilling or leaking.
• Throw the container containing the mixture of expired medications into the garbage.

2. Group Each Item According To Its Kind

All items that are not expired and still in good condition should be group according the F-F-L Method (Function, Frequency of Use and Location).

Group according to functions:

• Kids vitamins
• Adult vitamins and supplements
• Over-the-counter medication
• Homeopathic remedies
• Prescription Medications

Once you group them, you can create a subcategory by grouping them based on their frequency of use. For example, group all adult vitamins and supplements that need to be taken daily and make another group for the others that are only to be taken on a periodic basis or when needed. In this way you will know your storage needs for each category and subcategory and you will identify where to store them (location).

3. Identify The Correct Spot To Store Your Vitamins and Other Medications

• The bathroom cabinet or bathroom medicine cabinets are not really an ideal place to store your medications. The temperature in your bathroom varies greatly which means that you are exposing them to heat and humidity on a regular basis. Therefore, it is not an ideal environment for keeping tablets and other medications so that they maintain optimal potency.
• The refrigerator is also not ideal for keeping your daily pills unless your medication specifically recommends that you should store it in the refrigerator in the packaging. It is definitely a cool place but it also has a lot of moisture. This moisture can cause medications to lose their potency. You want to store them in a location that will keep them at optimal potency for a long time.
• The kitchen is actually the best place to store your dietary pills as long as you store them away from the oven or stove. Doing this will allow you to conveniently access them since most of the medications are taken with food. However, if you decide to store your medication in the kitchen and you have small children, pets or any family members with special needs, pick a cabinet or spot in your kitchen that is not accessible to them.

Store them wherever makes the most sense, you have the most space and be sure that the area is not accessible to children and pets. After you group your medicines and pills based on their kinds and frequency of use, allocate the most accessible location or spot in your cabinet for the group of items that you take everyday and then assign the top most or hard to reach shelf to the group of medicine or dietary pills that you take on a periodic basis or only when needed. In this way, it will not only help you to know where to access these items when you need them but also provide you with easy access to all of the items that you need the most.

• Vitamin Storage Ideas Tip: In our case, I store our vitamins that we are are taking daily in the cabinet where the most frequently used items are placed. While the other medication that is only taken when needed such as aspirin, antihistamine, pain medications and other over-the-counter medicines are stored in a storage bin and placed in the cabinet beside our refrigerator.

• When you realize that the number of vitamins have increased dramatically and the storage space that you are currently using is not enough, it’s an indication that you need to find a new way to store them and that’s what happened in our case!

That’s why I decided to utilize one shelf of our buffet table and used a different combination of organizers to fully maximize every inch of the space. I used a storage basket to store our supplements, while the pull out bin organizer drawer and clear storage with handle and lid are utilized to store all of our snacks which are pretty much junk foods.

We still keep our other medications in a storage bin that is placed inside the cabinet beside our refrigerator.

4. Clean and Sanitize

Once you identify the correct spot for your dietary pills, clean and disinfect all of your pill bottles as well all of the surfaces where you are going to store them. This includes the top shelves and the lower shelves

5. Utilize A Good Vitamin Organizer

Buy an organizing product that will help you to effectively utilize every inch of your vertical space and most importantly one that is based on your storage needs. Organizing products are a great investment to keep them organize at all times. Storage boxes, clear bins, and a lazy Susan are a few that you can utilize to effectively use the space that you have.

6. Use Labels To Give Your Medicine and Vitamins A Permanent Home

The best way to keep your vitamins organized at all times is to use a labeling method. Label each container based on the general description of the medication inside. For example, allergy meds, pain relievers, adult vitamins, first aid supplies and so on. This will help you and your loved ones to identify the exact container or storage bin of the needed item. Aside from that, labels will act as visual reminders for you and loved ones of where they need to put them back and will give information about which items you need to re-stock or replenish. If you decide not to keep the medication or dietary pills from the original container, make sure that you also indicate the expiration date.

• Vitamin Storage Ideas Tip: Label makers are a good tool to have to create labels in a breeze.

7. Educate Your Loved Ones

Tell your loved ones about the good news. Inform them about the changes that you have made and where they can find each of the supplies. Let them know that they are responsible to put them back in the same place where they got them.

In this way, all the dietary pills and medications will be kept organized.

Vitamin Organization and Storage Ideas

Image Source: Pinterest (iDesign)

1. Utilize A Lazy Susan Turntable – This is a good organizing product to store your supplements or vitamins in bottles. Buy a lazy Susan with a high side to keep everything inside when you move the turntable or whenever you are accessing or re-stocking items.

Image Source: PInterest (Neat Meathod)

2. Corral Your Medical Supplies Using Bins or Baskets – Clear bins or storage baskets are classic and versatile organizing products that you can use to store small items or group items that come in different shapes and sizes. Buy bins with built in handles because handles will help you to access the bins and to move them around with ease. Itis  also an organizing product that comes in a variety of price ranges so you would have the option to buy an affordable one at a dollar store or obtain more expensive storage bins from the container store.

3. Store Your Pill Bottles In Multi-tiered Racks or Spice Racks – If space is not a problem and you have kitchen cupboards to store your pill bottles, use these multi-tiered racks to organize them. They have four wide shelves to easily locate and access your pill bottles.

Image Source: PInterest (Hometalk.com)

4. Over the Door Organizer – If you do not have enough shelf space or cabinet space and you do not have kids or family members with special needs, utilizing the back of the cabinet door is another great solution to store your supplies.

5. Stackable Plastic Storage Pull Out Bin Organizer With Handles – This is another product to create an easy solution for your storage needs. It has a decent amount of storage space that is ideal for storing dry goods like your pill bottles, aspirin, first aid essentials and others. You have the option to stack them to effectively use the vertical space or to use them side by side to have a storage solution that will meet your needs. It is also made from clear plastic materials so you can easily see what’s inside. This will help you to find what you’re looking for quickly while the pull out system allows you to easily access the item inside the storage.

6. Cabinet Caddy The Pull and Rotate Organizer – If you have space in your upper kitchen cabinet and you want to allocate that space for your dietary medication, use this cabinet caddy snap product. It is a perfect fit for little spaces because it is designed to fit in smaller areas to allow you to maximize the vertical space of your cabinet. It has 3 adjustable shelves to make sure that every inch of your cabinet’s vertical space will be utilized. All you have to do is to fill it up and adjust the shelf height spacing to fit your items. When you’re ready to take your pills, just lift the handle, pull out and rotate the caddy. This is a great product to buy to organize your pills especially of you have a lot of them.

Image Source:Pinterest (homedepot.com)

7. Decorative Tray To Corral Your Vitamins – If you are having a hard time remembering to take your dietary capsule each day and you do not have kids that could mistake your supplements as candies, store them inside a decorative tray and place them on your kitchen counter. In this way, every time you are in the kitchen, you will be instantly reminded to take your vitamins. If you want to take an extra step to make them look beautiful, decant them in cute, airtight jars and put them on your decorative tray.

8.Use The Back Of Your Kitchen Cabinet Doors – Buy a wall mounted spice rack organizer to store your daily pills by installing them at the back of your kitchen cabinet. This will allow you to easily get the pills you need and will help to free-up your kitchen counter.

9. Use The Vacant Space of Your Bread Box – If you do not have cabinet space to store your medication and the kitchen counter is the only remaining option, utilize the vacant space inside your beautiful bread box.

10. Utilize The Dead Narrow Space By Using A Tall Drawer Organizer – If you have a dead space in between your refrigerator and your kitchen cabinet, utilize this area by placing a narrow and tall drawer organizer to store your pill essentials. Again, this is only an ideal storage location for your pills if you do not have kids and pets.

• Vitamin Storage Ideas Tip: However, if you have kids and this is the only option for you, then you need to store your medication inside a medication lock box that can fit inside the drawer of the tall organizer.

11. Other Medication Box With Lock Ideal To Use When You Have Kids Or A Family Member That Has Special Needs – If your available space to store your prescription medications and other dietary pills is a space where it is easily accessible by kids, store them in a medication box with a lock. Always make sure not to forget to lock them before you place them back in storage.

Plastic Locked Storage Bin

Child Proof First Aid Storage Box

• Vitamin Storage Ideas Tip: Always remember when deciding where to store them to keep in mind the safety of your little ones and use an organizing product that will not only help you to organize your medicine essentials but will also help you to prevent your kids from accessing them.

I hope that my vitamin storage ideas will inspire you to organize your daily pills and prescription meds.

More Organization Ideas:

17 Easy To Follow Cabinet Organization Ideas For Small Kitchen

Kitchen Counter Organizing Ideas: How To Keep Your Small Kitchen Counter Clear At All Times

10 Deep Kitchen Drawer Organizer Ideas: Different Ways To Maximize A Drawer’s Full Storage Potential