Storing Your Stuff

What SHOULD you put into storage?

Your Priceless Collection of Our Gang memorabilia MUST BE SAVED!

Okay, so you’ve started down the road on getting the house cleaned up. Digging into those closets is all SORTS of fun. So maybe we were a little heavy about dragging ALL your junk off, but you still have deep feelings for SOME of your stuff. Been there, done that.

While I would like to say that I just really have everything in line and my house and sheds are completely clutter free… they aren’t completely. So I have some fishing equipment that I’ve been vowing to use for the last 10 years. I have a tennis racket from 15 years ago. Surely ONE day, I’ll get around to using this, right? Yeah, probably not. That does make for good “shed” stuff though – not in your front closet or inside the house…

But how about that stuff that you may have that you just don’t want to quite get rid of? I was talking to my buddy Steve in Tampa last week (who owns Self Storage Centers of America) and just feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this option. Probably should have started OFF with this post instead of the “have yer junk hauled away” one. Either way, GET YOUR HOUSE ORGANIZED…

Your Local Self-Storage

What’s a good candidate to drag on to the local storage space? Think like maybe furniture and some bigger things – boxes of stuff that you can’t part with for whatever reason. Temporary (or maybe even long term) self-storage is a great answer for it. There’s a LOT that you can cram into one of those little 10×10 bins. Of course, you need to be thinking UP not down. When you’re packing into one of those things, think about standing the couch up on the end and stacking stuff even further on TOP of it. Not all couches or loveseats can handle this kind of treatment, so be reasonable about it.

Heavier storage type stuff like hutches and cabinets are great for storage as you can pack THEM full of stuff too. Now this is NOT an urging to slap hutches and cabinets and all into your self-storage place, but if you DO, make sure that you get max use out of them. The thing about storing stuff like hutches and cabinets is that sometimes you end up spending $100 for a $5 item. I’ve no doubt that a LOT of storage space is devoted to storing absolute crap, but if YOU are going to do it, do it smart.

To store or NOT to store – THAT is the question

Rule of thumb: If the cost of storing these things across the expected term of storage exceeds the cost of selling these items and buying new ones when needed – then it’s NOT a good item to store.

If it’s Junior’s school projects or something sentimental like that, then there’s no way to put a value on them so this falls outside the Rule of Thumb thing. Anything else though like furniture or clothes, the rule of thumb works out great.

Not sure where to find a good local storage place?  You can do a quick search on Bing for it or just ask a friend or two. Odds are good that one of your buddies is spending $100 a month for some $5 items…