Which bag to choose?

[mrbaseball47]

Hello Everyone,

This might somewhat of a strange situation and/or might get confusing so let me know if I need to explain it better. Up until recently I carried a Luminary 15 to work which housed my work laptop, iPad, phone, wallet, and various charging cables for the above. I also recently started needing to take 5 different medicines, each in their own respective bottle which I need through out the day. Currently I am carrying the medicine (and breakfast aka yogurt) in a shopping bag. I had planned to buy a Makers Bag when the color I wanted was finally available but my company decided to be nice and purchased everyone laptop bookbags. So now I have no need for my luminary 15 or Makers Bag for that matter.

However the fact that I carry the medicine in a shopping bag along with breakfast is an eyesore and Id really love to have something better. So ideally Id like a bag that can carry 5 pill bottles, wallet, and phone that can go inside my currently work laptop bookbag or can be carred standalone for the days I dont have pockets to carry them when Im not at work or with my work bookbag.

Does anyone have a TB bag suggestion?

[aedifica]

Depending on the size of your pill bottles and laptop bag, the Side Effect of the Side Kick might work really well for that.

I'm suggesting those rather than the Travel Cubelet because I think the SK's and SE's horizontal orientation will make it easier to dig out the right bottle when you need to.

[mrbaseball47]

Depending on the size of your pill bottles and laptop bag, the Side Effect of the Side Kick might work really well for that.

I'm suggesting those rather than the Travel Cubelet because I think the SK's and SE's horizontal orientation will make it easier to dig out the right bottle when you need to.

Would you suggest the side effect or the side kick in that case? Seems they are both very similar but the side is almost twice as big volume wise. I prefer it to be a small as possible but still fit everything I need.

[aedifica]

Would you suggest the side effect or the side kick in that case? Seems they are both very similar but the side is almost twice as big volume wise. I prefer it to be a small as possible but still fit everything I need.

It depends on the size of your pill bottles and wallet! You could line up your bottles the way they would fit inside a bag, measure them, and see which one they would fit better.

[tress29]

It depends on the size of your pill bottles and wallet! You could line up your bottles the way they would fit inside a bag, measure them, and see which one they would fit better.

The 3DOC is even a smidge smaller than the Side Effect.

[aedifica]

The 3DOC is even a smidge smaller than the Side Effect.

Not sure why I didn't think of that! That could also be a good choice, depending on the size of the bottles and wallet.

[mrbaseball47]

Not sure why I didn't think of that! That could also be a good choice, depending on the size of the bottles and wallet.

Its just normal pill bottles from Publix and the wallet is Nik's Minimalist #4

[Sherryk]

I’m thinking the yogurt is going to be your limiting size, lol. If it’s a ‘wide’ base on the bottom, it might not sit well in any of them, bottom down. What’s the diameter of the bottom of the yogurt container you use? Of course, if you trust no leaks, or you transfer yogurt to your own container anyway, size of container for the yogurt isn’t that important.

[carrot]

It's just me, but I would repack those pills into a day-of-the-week pill case. You'd save a fair amount of space!

[blackbird]

It's just me, but I would repack those pills into a day-of-the-week pill case. You'd save a fair amount of space!

Something like this might work:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073Z85QG3..._EtjPDbW0WNBG8

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mrbaseball47]

Something like this might work:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073Z85QG3..._EtjPDbW0WNBG8

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I do like the way that works but the problem is I take 2 pills at 9am, 2 at 12am, 1 at 5pm, and 1 at bedtime, all different pills and they all look very similar.

[mrbaseball47]

I’m thinking the yogurt is going to be your limiting size, lol. If it’s a ‘wide’ base on the bottom, it might not sit well in any of them, bottom down. What’s the diameter of the bottom of the yogurt container you use? Of course, if you trust no leaks, or you transfer yogurt to your own container anyway, size of container for the yogurt isn’t that important.

To be honest, the yogurt/lunch isn't a huge issue. Ideally this would fit inside my work laptop bag or my s25 when I carry that or if I don't want to carry a big bag just by itself.

[G42]

I do like the way that works but the problem is I take 2 pills at 9am, 2 at 12am, 1 at 5pm, and 1 at bedtime, all different pills and they all look very similar.

This is one 4x/day, 7 days

https://www.amazon.com/AUVON-iMedass...ZDDWENH46YDDXK

[moriond]

Oops, sorry, I didn't see the most recent updates saying that yogurt, etc. wasn't needed. This was my solution:

Picture of a Ghost Whale Organizer Pouch Small, Coyote Mesh holding 5 pill dispensers, my iPhone SE, a set of silverware (Knife, Spoon, and Fork -- same set as shown in the Using the Yeoman Duffel Packing Cubes as a Lunch Bag post -- but any spoon or spork set will do), yogurt (from my refrigerator), Nik's Minimalist Wallet #5 in Nordic Halcyon
Below is a Side Kick in original Halcyon/Island.


Here's everything inside the Side Kick. The Small Ghost Whale Organizer Pouch fits vertically, and latches onto the O-ring above the Nik's Wallet. (I stuffed something below the wallet in the pocket, so you could see it slotted in the pocket. In the next pocket is my iPhone SE -- obviously that pocket can hold much larger phones. The cutlery is in one of the pockets for pens. The yogurt container is sitting on the bottom of the Side Kick.

I don't carry 5 different medications around -- so normally I use the Mini Ghost Whale Organizer Pouch. (It was a big jump for me to go to carrying around 3). Also, I don't carry yogurt in my Side Kick, but I do carry a lot more items than are shown here.

@mrbaseball47, you clearly don't need a separate Side Kick, if all you want is to store a few items in your laptop bag (although, I'd point out that you probably wouldn't have the convenience of O-rings and nicely sized pockets in your non-Tom Bihn bag).

Without the yogurt, you could fit everything into a 3D Organizer Cube (I could do this -- but you might not be able to depending on your Phone). If the Yeoman Duffel Aether Packing Cubes had not been retired, I'd just advise you to get one of those, probably in Mini or Small Size. These were amazingly useful (due to both their depth, light-weight material, and handles), and were sold at least through early 2018, but I think most people just didn't buy them, because they didn't need them for packing large duffels.

The thing that I found really annoying about carrying prescription medications is that most pharmacies now issue huge bottles to dispense these, because they claim that they need the extra printing area for all the information, drug warnings, and information codes. All the pill dispensers I've seen are not particularly efficient about their use of space, and, increasingly, as you've noted, generic drugs often look similar now except for a small stamped product code that is too small to read in practice. On top of that, I prefer to have the labeling information available.

I generally toss out old pill cases, but if there's anything that is different that I want to remember (for example, if someone went through minor surgery and was given a pain killer that I'm unfamiliar with, etc. I keep the old bottles. So, I just went through all the older, smaller bottles that they used to use for dispensing drugs, and pulled out two of the smaller sizes. Then, I just take the labels that they print out in duplicate and staple to the paper bags on the outside of the prescriptions they fill, and stick these to the smaller bottles.

I use the mesh Ghost Whale Organizer Pouches for these, both because you can easily see the contents are pills, and also because the mesh versions are generally the most flexible for holding slightly larger or lumpier contents. (For example, some A5 notebooks that are tight fits in the Ballistic GWOPs will fit in the Coyote Mesh A5 GWOPs. I prefer the Coyote mesh as softer than the Black mesh, but either will work).

HTH

moriond

[mrbaseball47]

@moriond - I agree I probably dont need a side kick just to store those items however I want something I can also carry around with those items when I dont want to carry a big bag. I wear pants or shorts that dont have pockets a lot of times on the weekends and finding some place to put my phone or wallet can be frustrating when i really dont want to carry a big EDC bag like a s25. Im hoping whichever bag I choose would allow me to move it from one bag to the other with little issue.

I wish my bottles would fit in the ghost whale organizer but the bottles they gave me are much too big for that. Anyone know of a way to request smaller bottles?

Based on your comments it looks like the Side Kick would be my best bet.

Anyone else have any suggestions or comments?