I have a bucket of drugs in one of my kitchen cabinets, stored way up high and out of the reach of two busy little boys. For a short time during my breast cancer treatment I reached for this container every day. Lately, though, I have little use for this medley of medication. There are some things I use -- like cough medicine made for little people and ibuprofen for the occasional headache -- but mostly, we are a drug-free household. So really, I don't need much of what I'm storing in that cabinet. Much of it is so old, in fact, it has probably expired.

Every once in a while, we should all take a tour through our medicine cabinets and peek at the expiration dates on our prescriptions and over-the-counter bottles. If anything is expired, toss it! Expired medications do not work. In some cases, they can be toxic if consumed after their deadline dates.

To find out more about the shelf life of common medicine cabinet products, click here. To learn more about safely disposing of expired medications, click here.