When you live in the south, unfortunately you do not have a basement, attic or garage that you can keep food or stockpile items in. You have to be creative and organized in the ways that you can store items.
A friend of mine asked me to post what I store in my garage. I am NOT an expert on this at all, it is mostly trial and error. Who knew deoderant would melt?? Well, I do now! It was also nicely pointed out to me by a friend that I was killing my batteries by keeping them in the hot garage. Honestly, I had forgotten my basic 11th grade science class about how batteries work and that I really needed to keep them in the cold if possible.
Also, there is the issue of the cement, the chemiclas from it will leach into your food products so you have to store everything up off the ground. This also goes for anything you are storing water/liquid in. Do not store your food or other products near gasoline, insecticides or other chemicals. The plastic that these chemicals are stored in is porous and can leach into your food and products also. These items should be in a separate cabinet on the other side of the garage.
Most people have the same problems with garage storage. Either your summers are too hot or the winters are too cold. I am not sure there is a perfect climate for all year long non-climate controlled garage storage.
These are the things that I store in my garage:
Razors
Laundry Products
Wipes
Cleaning Supplies
Soap
Liquid Hand Soap
Shampoo and Conditioner
Paper Products
Air Fresheners
Toothbrushes and Toothpaste
Body Wash
Band-Aids
Things that I don’t store in the garage anymore or never have…
Lotion ( it all separates in the heat, even shaking it something happens to it!)
Deodorant
Batteries
Diaper’s ( they smell milldewy to me… call me crazy!)
Candles (obvously these melt!)
Make Up (I never kept this in the garage, but the heat will ruin it)
Medicine
Food, canned or boxed or otherwise!
Although I do not keep food in my garage out in the open, I do have a refridgerator and chest freezer in my garage.
What do you keep in your garage?
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Thanks! So jealous of your stockpile but so grateful for all the tips from you and Paul. I’m slowly working my way up to a big pile but for now, its all fitting under my cabinets lol . Plus I tend to give stuff to my mom and MIL since they give me their coupons. 🙂 Thanks for everything.
oh dear! i keep everything in the garage. we have a really small house and the only space we had was to keep the stockpile there….right next to the 2nd half of my closet =(
time to reorganize things today!
Great tips, thanks! I live in the south, too, and I’m starting to learn the hard way about storing things in 100+ degree weather 🙂 I didn’t know about the concrete leaching into food products. Good to know, thanks!
Last month we went and checked on our supplies in the garage here in Indiana…Dawn dish soap and froze and so had my Lysol wipes. Now I’ve started a pile on top of my fridge!
maaaan i need to get better at this…..when i get 5 dawn soaps on sale i get excited thinking its a stockpile!:(
lol..thats so true. i think that too!
I store toothpaste, brushes, floss, mouthwash, bodywash, shampoo, conditioner, razors, cleaning supplies, cereal, canned drinks, bottled drinks, paper products and ziploc bags in the garage and everything else inside. I too live in Texas. It’s been two years and I haven’t had any issues.
I’ve lucked out with my stock piling. Both of our children are out on there own. One married and the other living with her boyfriend. So our children’s closets (daughters actually) has become another pantry and a large one at that. Our sons bedroom has my paper products (toilet tissue, paper towels) in it.
When our kids come over to visit ( haha who am I kidding) they will leave with a large supply bags of stuff. My husband always asks if they took enough when they are leaving with bags and bags of things. But this is why I do couponing. If I can help them out, it makes me feel good. My daughter and daughter-in-law are starting to coupon more and more. Seeing what I get for free or just a buck or two, they are starting to pick up there stock piles, slowly but surely.
Thank you for all your information you post and for being real about couponing.
We have a 2 story house, but the only thing on the 2nd floor is a game room that is empty! that is 150 sq ft. I bet you guys would like that 🙂
We have one son off in college and a 2nd going in the fall. Lotsa room! 🙂