It's expired, is there an app for that?

It's always surprising how many expired things I can find in my pantry and medicine chest. Even my cosmetics come with a little symbol that says 6m or 12m now - which is actually not very useful since I have no recollection when I purchased that face cream!  Some items that have expired don't cause me any anxiety.  I'm grateful we didn't use the entire bottle of Bactine.  That means we haven't been cutting and scraping ourselves much.   On a deeper level, I guess I should worry about the $4.99 that I spent for the Bactine that went to waste.  Soap and water would have mostly likely worked fine, but that discussion is for another time.

I also find myself wondering, what will happen to me if I use a health, beauty or food product after the expiration date?  Will it involve a digestive ailment, rash, disfigurement or worse?  I'd like to think I'm good about not letting things go to waste, but let's face it - we all have to clean out the refrigerator because something has grown green mold, gotten smelly or has expired before we can use it up.  I got to thinking, wouldn't it be great if there was an app for that?

I could wake up to my daily calendar and a message that says, "Don't forget to throw out that Cepacol Throat Spray, it's expired."  I choose this example because I found one in the medicine chest that expired in 2009!  Equally shameful is the Simply Saline that expired in 2008.  How clever Siri would be if she could help me out with the mayo on the refrigerator door that expired 3 months ago.

Today's Items

These items and many more expired items that I came across today in the medicine chest are going!  The empty containers that have the recycling symbol on the bottom will go into the recycling bin and the others will make their way to the trash.  Moving forward, I am going to use a Sharpie Marker to denote the expiration date of each item that's in the medicine chest in a conspicuous location.  Maybe this will help us to use these items up, or at least throw them out closer to the actual expiration date.

Does this happen to you?  A friend of mine who was inspired by my Only 3 Things A Day Challent sent me the photo below.  YES, it does say use before December 31, 1998!  It was from a box of beignet mix.  She happily reported that she threw it out!   

Let's keep setting ourselves free! I would love to hear from you if you decide to join the challenge!  Remember I will never judge you or the stuff you have accumulated!  We need to stick together and lighten our loads.