Five Important Items it’s Dangerous to Keep in the Wrong Place

wine

Being that we are all just simple humans, we are prone to make a mistake or two on occasion. I don’t know about you, but I make mistakes all the time. Just this morning, in fact, I left to take my kids to school and accidentally forgot to push the button to close the garage door when we pulled out of the drive. It happens. Thankfully, the alarm was on so if anyone opened our doors it would go off and we’d be all right. Last week my husband put our girls’ lunches in the wrong boxes which is a huge no-no in our house. For one, their PB Kids lunch boxes are personalized with their names on the front for idiot-proof lunch packing. Secondly, they do not eat any of the same foods, so they were furious.

We are only human; it happens. We just have to get over, work through it, learn from it and move on. But, did you know that we are all (well, most of us) probably making some mistakes we don’t even know we are making in terms of storage? That’s right, many of us keep things in places that are all wrong – and I’m not just talking abou the great debate as to whether or not tomatoes are better in the fridge or on the counter. I’m talking about things you may not have considered storing elsewhere seeing as how your own storage methods are foolproof. Well, they’re not; so it’s time to learn what you’re doing wrong and fix it. One thing you can do is invest in heavy duty plastic storage tubs which are very versatile and can be used to store and organize a wide variety of items. Furthermore, I think you will appreciate knowing the right way to do a few of these things, to be quite honest.

Your wine

We have friends with a wine shelf that they don’t use. It drives me nuts as I know that you cannot store wine standing upright for very long. It allows the cork time to dry out, which allows the wine to become filled with air. When air gets into the wine, it goes bad. This means it’s time to put that wine cork back into the bottle as tight as can be and stick it back on its side so that the vino stays good. I know you will thank me for this one.

Your important documents

You should know it’s a terrible idea to put things like your Social Security Card in your wallet or anywhere that anyone can gain access to it, but some people still do it. What you need to do with all your important documents – cards, files and anything you need to keep – is store them in a secure, fireproof safe in a place you can easily get to and grab them in case of an emergency. Additionally, you can put them in a safe deposit box at the bank. It’s called safe for a reason.

Medication

All right, so this should be common sense. The bottles of medications your doctor prescribes you say flat out that you cannot store those things in the heat, whether it’s just a little above room temperature or it’s excessive heat. What do you think your bathroom consists of? You take long, hot, steamy showers in there and things get hot. On that note, you also have a small problem in that you have hot lights from those lights, and your medications will go bad fast. The kitchen is where we keep ours since it’s much cooler in there – but we don’t keep them in any cabinets near the stove or oven.

Your junk mail

We are all guilty of this one. Walking into the house with the mail in one hand, I’m usually holding onto the things I’ve deemed important walking up the driveway and sorting through whatever was in the box. I throw away anything that looks like junk or is unwanted, and that’s a bad idea. For one, many of those items are credit card applications that might already include personal information. It’s a good idea to either burn those items or cut them up small. If you have a small shredder, it’s a good idea to run the papers through there and then throw them away in numerous trash bags.

Your condiments

All right, I’m so calling out a win on this one! People make fun of me all the time because I stick everything in the fridge even if it’s not open. I bring home a new container of mustard, and it goes directly into the fridge no questions asked. However, most people seem to think that unless it’s already opened it needs to go in the pantry. Nope; sorry! It won’t go bad on the counter, know that; but it will begin to lose flavor and it won’t be very good. I think that everyone can lay off of me now, right?

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