When our clients are reluctant to de-clutter, they often ask us about storage. We admit, there can be times when storage is a good solution: if you’re selling your home and need to de-clutter for staging purposes, if you’re moving and your new home won’t be ready before you have to leave your current home, or if you’re renovating and have to empty out part of your home temporarily.
The key word here is temporary. If you’re considering storage, make sure it’s short term.
We were hired once to empty two large storage rooms that our client had rented 34 years ago, when she moved to New York and had to downsize from her house in New Jersey to a small apartment. We estimated that she spent $189,000 to store her things all this time. Guess how many times she visited the site?
Zero.
She never went there to pick up anything that she needed because, guess what, if she had needed any of this stuff to begin with, she never would have put it in storage.
The United States has more than 45,000 storage facilities, and the industry makes more than $39 Billion annually. It’s too much.
If you have things you’ve stored away for someday, fill in the blanks:
My things have been in storage for ______ months.
My monthly storage fees are $_____.
Now multiply those two numbers, and calculate how much money you’ve spent. Now think about the things you’ve stored. Is there anything in there that is worth all that hard-earned money?
