Ideally, storage units can be a great help, providing a convenient, purposeful and temporary storage solution. A good example is when you are moving house and you need to store your household goods for a couple of months. But sometimes circumstances change or time frames get extended, so what happens to the value ratio when short-term becomes long-term? What initially may not seem like a lot of money each month can quickly add up and eventually cost you more than the value of your possessions.
It is therefore important to ask: How much is storage really costing you, and is it really worth it?
Consider a recent client of mine who was renting a 50 sq. ft. unit at a self-storage facility. He took the unit in April with the goal of renting no more than three months while living in temporary accommodation. Since he planned to move into another unfurnished flat, he figured it would be worth it to store his furniture, appliances and other household items so he wouldn’t have to buy them again.
The going rate of the storage unit was £190 per month and the storage facility was running a special offer: “50% discount for the first 8 weeks” (essentially 1 month free). So far, so good right? It seemed a good deal …until circumstances changed and he needed to postpone his move date several times. By the time he was ready to move it was November – eight months later, not three. And to add insult to injury, he ended up in a fully furnished flat! Sadly, it was money out the window. The storage facility had also just increased the rental rates in November to £210, which is when my client decided he needed to get out quickly and called for help.
As we worked in the unit, we did a quick calculation of how much he had spent on the storage in relation to the value of the items.
The rental period was eight months from April to November. April to October at £190 per month, minus the 8-week 50% discount = £1,140. Add the November rate of £210 for a grand total of £1,350. This was a shock. He quickly realized that even if he had moved to an unfurnished flat, he could have bought all new furnishings for that amount. He could have also sold everything in the first place for extra cash in hand. But this wasn’t obvious at the time and of course hindsight is always 20/20. At least this was a huge eye-opener that has forced my client to view his belongings and weigh their true value much differently.
This scenario is a very common one. On a different scale I worked with a couple in the U.S. who moved into a condo after selling their home of 35 years. They were waiting for their new home to be refurbished and threw everything into storage, planning on six months. Nearly three years later they moved. Not once in that time did they access the storage unit and by then they could not remember the contents of over half the boxes. They told me it was “easier to box it up and deal with it later”. Sadly, “later” cost them nearly three years of storage rental. When I assisted them in sorting and purging through the unit before loading the moving trucks, we carted off more than 1/3 of the belongings to the Goodwill Donation Center. They thought most of their stuff would simply transfer to their new place. But in reality it was a bigger change than they expected. The style/décor of their new home was completely different, and they were downsizing. While they were relieved to have at least edited this much before the move, they deeply regretted the waste of paying such an exorbitant amount on storing so many unwanted things.
There are plenty of other reasons to rent storage besides moving home and a lot of those have to do with freeing up space. In this case storage units are being treated more as off-site “spare rooms” for the things we don’t have room for…be it seasonal items, inherited items, or those things we can’t bring ourselves to part with. Are these things so valuable that it is worth paying to keep them? Could we be funding something more exciting and worthwhile…like a well-deserved holiday?
If you are thinking about putting things in storage, here are a few questions to consider:
- What is the reason? Are you moving? Do you need temporary storage while you sort through inherited family heirlooms? Or are you looking for that off-site “spare room”?
- Is the storage intended for short-term or long-term? As evidenced in my examples, things can change. If your short-term plans change to long-term, would you still be willing to pay storage rental for the same stuff?
- What is the total monetary value of the things you want to store?
- What does 1 month’s storage cost for the unit size you require?
- How many months before your storage payments equal/exceed your items’ value?
- Are your items replaceable?
- Other considerations: Do you need 24/7 access? Do you need climate control?
If you are already renting a unit, consider reassessing from time to time, especially if plans are changing.
- If you are moving, imagine the things you want to fill your new home. Is there anything in your unit that is overflow? Consider spending a day or two at your unit editing these things. There may be enough you don’t really want / need / have room for in your new place that could warrant moving into a smaller unit, with a smaller rental fee.
- Perform the same cost analysis as above – determine an estimated value of your items then calculate how much you have already paid to store them. Then add on the cost of projected additional months. How does it balance out?
- Take out a piece of paper and write down – from memory – everything that is in your storage unit. Take the list with you then next time you go there and compare what you remember to what you have. Think about that.
- How often do you visit or access what’s in your unit?
Ready to let go? In the case of my first client example, we discussed various donation options and made some phone calls. A colleague of his was the happy recipient of some of the furniture. Many items – such as books and DVD’s – went to charity. *The storage facility asked for donations over the Christmas period, so it was handy to leave some of the items on-site. And the greatest coup was arranging Emmaus Greenwich to collect electrical appliances such as the fridge/freezer, dishwasher and set of speakers that will be well-placed in homes that need them. We found Emmaus very friendly, helpful and extremely accommodating. They arrived promptly at the storage unit and happily took the appliances away! For more information or to find a similar charitable re-use organisation like Emmaus in your area, check out FRN, the furniture re-use network.
What would you rather do with £1,350?
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