[squidfood]

When we recently looked into self-storage to store our junk, the high prices per cubic foot (in a very HCOL area) made us recontextualize our junk in terms of how much rent each item was paying to live with us. Far more in rent over a few months then just buying a new one of whatever it was, when we needed it.

We got rid of a lot of junk.

[rcarr]

> Far more in rent over a few months then just buying a new one of whatever it was, when we needed it.

I remember reading an article once that said exactly the same thing. The economics of it just don't add up for most people. Anything over 6 months to 12 months and you're generally better off selling or even giving cheap stuff away and then repurchasing later if you need to. Storage gets expensive pretty fast. The guy working at the storage centre said most weeks he'd either end up emptying an abandoned unit or see someone removing most of their stuff and throwing it into a skip.

[biomcgary]

My wife uses the local thrift shops as "storage" for a very large fraction of our household goods. The shop will send someone to pick up our donations for storage for free. When we "take stuff out of storage", it isn't quite what we put in, but usually close enough and a nice change of pace. And the storage fee is very modest.

[arethuza]

About ten years ago we were selling a property and decided to "declutter" to make it more appealing - we put lots of stuff in storage.

After a few months we had sold the property and then looked at the stuff we had put in storage and 95% of it was junk....

[wiredfool]

8 years ago, we moved continents. Some stuff got shipped, some stuff stored that was too precious to sell but not precious enough to ship.

Yeah. 8 years of storage for what's now a bunch of kids toys, 120v tools, and some random furniture that we're never going to ship, some handmade stuff.

Anyway, we're going to have an epic yard-sale this year when we actually make it back.

[ghaff]

>epic yard-sale

Which you'll probably find is more trouble than it's worth but at least it will get stuff out of your hands. Going to make a serious effort to get rid of a fair bit of stuff this summer myself.

[wiredfool]

When we left, the community had a pretty good yard-sale culture. We won't make back anything like what we paid for the stuff or the storage, but we'll not have to deal with the storage costs any more.

Otherwise, the tools, books and toys will go to the local thrift stores. And the crap goes to the dump.

[ghaff]

To the degree that people get a storage unit to store things that they don't really have a future plan for using/displaying/etc., they should probably reconsider. It's mostly paying money to kick the can down the road and even potentially make it someone else's problem.

[antisthenes]

Yeah, people just need to have less shit.

The most valuable things I own as a homeowner are my collection of tools for home improvement, but even their value pales in comparison to the value of the property itself. I'm very glad I don't have a hoarder mentality.