Do you have a storage unit? How about two or three? If you have one, do you even know what’s inside of it? If I gave you a pen and paper and told you to write down a list of everything you’re storing, how far could you get before being stumped?
There are so many people who have storage units that are throwing thousands of dollars away every year, just because they have a hard time letting go. If this is you, let’s change that today!
As a professional organizer and declutterer, I declutter hundreds of storage units every year. People rent them with the best of intentions, “I will only keep it for 6 months until we ….”, and the next thing they know 5 years have passed and tens of thousands of dollars have been auto-deducted.
With every single storage unit I see, we are lucky if there are a handful of items that the owners actually end up wanting to keep. The rest is just stuff that we donate or trash. Without fail, by the end of the job, they always say to me that they had no idea why they kept their storage unit for that long! Each client is able to turn in their lock and key, and finally stop the waste of money.
If you need a storage unit while you’re renovating your house or while you’re moving, don’t think you’re off the hook! I have clients that had me declutter storage units they rented for these purposes, then never got rid of them. They started thinking that it would be temporary, that they would only have it for a few months while transitioning. But then a few months went by, and then a few months more, and now they have a new set of cooking utensils and a new dining room table and the old ones are long forgotten.
When getting a storage unit with the idea of only having it temporarily, give yourself a deadline that you have to have it cleared by. Stick to it, and don’t let yourself be consumed by those unnecessary bills!
Then there is the case of the emotional storage units. The ones that are housing a whole life’s story within its walls, usually someone else's. The ones that were rented when a loved one passed, and you couldn’t bear to get rid of everything that they owned because it felt like losing them all over again.
I’m here to tell you that your loved ones are not their stuff. Your loved ones are the memories that you cherish, the moments that you shared. They aren’t the fancy china plates that were never eaten off of, or the collection of porcelain dolls that still kind of freak you out.
Your loved one wouldn’t want this burden on you. They don’t want you to be weighed down by their stuff, and they don’t want you to be throwing your money at it unnecessarily. Honor them with your memories, and you can let the stuff go.
If you have a storage unit (or more than just one), I want you to take a good hard look at everything in there. I want you to confront those items that you haven’t seen in years, and decide if you really want to keep paying to have them someplace you don’t get to appreciate them or even use them.
How much are these items worth to you? Are they worth buying them over and over and over again? That’s what you’re doing when you’re paying for a storage unit. You are re-purchasing that item ten times over in storage fees.
I know it’s hard to let go, no matter what the circumstances may be. I know that after years, even DECADES, of having this storage unit, you don’t want to face what’s inside. Grab a friend, schedule a trash pickup, and let it all go.
Tracy McCubbin is the founder of dClutterfly, one of America’s top decluttering companies. Tracy looks at the root of our clutter to find the real cause and ways to find real solutions.