[Reason077]

I somewhat agree about the storage unit. I've certainly spent far more on my storage unit over several years than the value of all the stuff that's in it. On the other hand, it's kind of nice having a safe place to store various things which have some sentimental value. It's also a good way to figure out what things you actually need in your life. Has something been sitting in storage for 2 years and you haven't missed it? You don't need it!

[walrus01]

If you live in a house with a garage that has a lot of stuff stored in it, you could do the same calculation and find that the money paid to the mortgage per square foot of garage is more than the value of the things stored in it. Or if you have a full basement with maybe 100 sq ft of stuff stored in it.

But there's also a value in having those things available when you want them. And value in simply having the utilitarian flexible space for projects.

I know a number of people who have like a 650 square ft condo and maybe a 90-110 square foot storage unit, and the actual amount of junk and clutter they own is far less than people living in 1800 square foot houses with two car garages in the suburbs.

[archi42]

I can totally relate to these observations:

1) We recently moved from a 80m² flat to a ~145m² house, plus 50m² of basement (860 -> 1560+540 sqft). We had a lot of stuff but it fitted well. Now the house is already equally full with things, but the only non-house-related item we got that takes up more space than before is the super automatic coffee maker. Thinking about it, this is because the actual living rooms did get only marginally bigger: A lot of the additional space is "hidden" because now each of us has a room of their own instead of a shared office. Which, for us and our relationship, is a tremendous boon.

2) Most of things we rarely use derive their value from being available on-demand. Especially for maintenance and repairs: When we rented a flat, all these tasks were the duty of our landlord. Now owning an older house of our own means we have to do that, and often having the proper tools & materials available is a huge boon. The most bulky item: The ladder for cleaning the roof rails. And then there is about a palette of various building materials I still need for all the necessary repairs/maintenance/improvements that we need to do.

[selfhoster11]

Exactly. People underestimate how important availability is, to put it in IT terms.

Perhaps the clearest example of this is Uber, where it's not guaranteed to be available at all in your area at a time of your choosing, but the pre-booked cab service that costs 2x more will near-flawlessly arrive on time, every time.

[selfhoster11]

You must have never been hit with an acute attack of the "I need a Nokia N95 to fax cable to get something done" syndrome. 2 years is a while, but some things have a usage frequency much longer than once every 2 years.

I keep stuff in my storate unit largely because it's a cheap way to declutter my owned flat. A lot of my hobby retro tech is something I'll end up repurchasing at some later point anyway (except in worse condition and for far more than I would want to spend on it), so that's another argument.