improving memory

so there's all these things on the shelves of supermarkets and health food stores that claim to improve one's memory.
any thoughts on that stuff?

i have noticed in the last few years (i'm 31) that my memory is getting "bad".  i think of something that i should do; i'm at work and think "oh, i should stop at the store and pick up something on my way home" and i forget to stop.  and when i get home i realize it and then, no big deal, i go out again.
or get upset.  "oh, i should have written it down.  oh, i'm so forgetful.  oh, poor me."
my wife says the same thing...about her memory.
but what are we forgetting?  nothing really important.  just little piddly things here and there. 
oh, i forgot to look up this website.
or i forgot to get this from the store.
or i forgot to leave a light on when i went out.
when i forget to put on a pair of pants when i leave the house or turn off the stove, then i'll start to worry.  in the meantime, i'll just write notes to my self and try to pay more attention.

i think that we are constantly barraged and force fed so much information from radio, tv, billboards, magazines, newspapers, interweb, all that stuff, that we can't focus. 
it all gets forced into our brains and sits, waiting for a chance to be used...remembered. 
and maybe it's all a ploy by the mysterious PTB so that we don't know our assholes from our elbows and are made more pliable and suggestible and open to manipulation.  i don't necessarily believe that. 
there's just so many people that they all need jobs so they have to create new jobs and new fields. 
marketing.  advertising.  selling.  so many people telling others what to think, what to buy, what they need.  and in turn, they are told what to do, what to think, what to buy by the other agencies and so on. 

maybe remembering is another choice that we make.  and how accurate is memory anyway?

we witnessed a hit/run accident (no injuries, just cars involved and the person who got hit got arrested because he had no license or insurance).  anyway, i saw a green nissan suv.  my wife saw a black truck.  another witness saw a dark colored chevy blazer.
it's "rashomon".  for the most part, we remember how and what we want to remember.  and it's all influenced by our experiences and knowledge and biases.
maybe i "forgot" to remind my wife of some plans we had because i didn't want to go.
or maybe i "forgot" to pick up something at the store for a friend because i "remembered" that time when he "forgot" to do the same for me...

or we learn to "forget" traumatic experiences or dilute them to make it less painful.  i'm not making light of traumatic experiences or repressed memories.  (for some reason i feel that i have add little disclaimers here and there because sometimes i come off like an insensitive know-it-all.  which is all the worse in person, because i have this tone of voice that always sounds sharp and sarcastic.  but nothing wrong with adding extra information and not causing offense, right?)

anyway, the brain has many tricks and can't always be trusted.  that's the point of this post.
and to ask if anyone has any good/bad experiences with the memory/focus factor type pills...