Whether you are storing furniture, a TV, even a vehicle, at some point you will pay more rental fees than the value of what you are storing. If you don't know exactly how long you are going to be storing your stuff, don't store it. Sell it. Even give it away.
example: car value is $3000 and you could replace that car for about the same cost. Your monthly rental cost is $100. After 31 months you will have paid more in rental costs than the whole car is worth. Same with any stuff from an apartment or house. Does that sound like a long time? It's not. A couple of years flies by when things in life change.
My case is a bit extreme but my family member stored "collectibles" for many, many years. She spent tens of thousands of dollars on items that were worth hundreds. She just made that bill part of her expenses and forgot about ever clearing it out. Please don't do that.
Storage units are only good for short-term use. After a number of months, your rent costs will exceed the value of the stuff you are storing.
byu/RedditWhileImWorking inpersonalfinance
Posted by RedditWhileImWorking
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Family members in a similar boat. It seems to be a form of hoarding for those with enough funds to store more crap in a slightly less cluttered way.
Agreed. When we were house hunting a few years ago we got a storage unit and would take a car load of things to drop off every time we went there for a tour. Worked out well and made moving day so smooth. Had it for a few months overlapping the time we were in a condo to the time we moved into the house. Made everything less stressful.
Storage makes no financial sense for the exact reasons you mention. Storage costs exceed replacement value. Simple math.
People and their stuff – not logical.
I’ve been saying this for years. With the exception of things like business records that must legally be maintained, storage seldom makes sense long term.
Storage unit rentals beyond 6 months are strictly for hoarders. The number of people with garages so packed they have to rent additional space to ***store*** items indefinitely is nothing short of hoarder-mentality.
Yup. Storage units used to be cheap. They aren’t anymore. I just checked, a 135 sf storage unit at the UHaul near me costs $215/mo. I think a lot of people’s mindset still persists from when they were cheap.
Not wrong. Where were you 5 years ago?
While I agree in theory, often times the reason people have a storage unit is to preserve things with sentimental value, and other things just get tossed in because you have the space.
If you need to store a box of photos and a table/chairs your grandfather made, the dollar value of your units contents is irrelevant.
Tell me how this might work for Christmas decorations. It’s one of the things I store. I can’t buy all of my lights, tree, decor every year for the annual price of my storage, and that’s not the only thing in there. Camping gear, pig roaster, other event decor (like New Year’s Eve stuff). I could dedicate my spare bedroom to all this stuff but then I wouldn’t have a spare room for guests…
Stores my motorcycle over the winter because I’m in an apartment. The second it got nice out, that unit was canceled
Depends upon what you are storing. If it is your families heirlooms then it isn’t about the cost of replacing heirlooms. It is about it being something that has passed down through generations and wanting to keep those items.
Long term storage represents mental illness.
Value is subjective, not objective. Some monetarily worthless junk might be priceless to someone who lost a parent or other loved one
The same can be said for a house. Let say, you’ve paid off your mortgage and the only thing you need to do is keep up on maintenance, utility, and property taxes. Eventually, those are going to exceed the price of everything in your house and the house itself. Do you get rid of the house at that point? Of course not.
With a storage unit, the rent covers the maintenance, utility, and property taxes for the owners of the storage unit. This is simply divided by however many storage units there are, (yeah I know different sizes but you get the idea).
If you want to get rid of the storage unit, you either need to get rid of the item you are storing or bring it back onto your main property. At which point, you could buy your own shed to keep it in (costs $$), build another building (costs $$$ and permits), or buy a bigger house and sell the old one (costs $$$$$).
So it really comes down to what is most convenient for you. I personally like to use the following rules:
* Can I use this right now?
* Can I use this in the next month?
* Not, is there a possibility I could use this.
* If not, I throw it away, recycle it, give it to a thrift store, etc.
The most unpleasant cost that I have associated with my camper trailer is the storage. Unfortunately I can only get away with storing it in the driveway for a few days. Luckily I have found a great deal on outdoor storage nearby, but it still really adds up.
I quietly laugh at parents who rent storage units for their kids between college school years. If your kid has too much stuff in their dorm to fit in the car for the drive home…your kid has too much stuff in their dorm (yes…there are exceptions such as students who fly in)
Your case is probably not even that uncommon. I know someone that’s had a storage unit for 15 years now for stuff that couldn’t be worth more than low thousands. They’ve had her own place for the last 3 years, five figures in CC debt, have been struggling to make ends meet, AND HAVE STILL NOT FULLY CLEARED OUT THE UNIT.
Most people don’t pay to store things. They pay to avoid dealing with the stuff.
I owned a warehouse and this is such a painful lesson. When you see nice things in bulk in the trash, this is usually why.
I live in a city. If I get a storage unit (something I’m considering) it would be because I literally have nowhere else to put the thing I need to store. If I need it, I need it – the cost of the storage vs the value of the item stored is irrelevant.
I manage a self-storage facility and you are 100000000% right. Most of the long term people we have never even come see their stuff, I will never understand it.
When I moved a few years ago I took advantage of the get the first month free at a storage unit. Think it was like $25 in fees. So I dumped a bunch of extra stuff and used that month to get stuff filtered.
I couldn’t believe they’d let me use it for free like that. Because monthly was like $100?
I can’t imagine just storing crap for a year or so at that price!
If you have a storage unit long-term, you have too much stuff. Get rid of it.
My sister has 2 storage units. One for over 10 years and she got another one when that on filled up a few years back. Full of clothes and useless junk. Literally things stuck in the back that she hasn’t seen in 10 years. She’s spent thousands of dollars holding on to useless junk.
it depends on the value of your stuff…. I think I have about 50k worth of stuff in my unit. at least. the van which I also store, is probably worth over 100k
I agree with you and from a macro/micro economic perspective you are correct. However, valuation rules breakdown at the individual level because market value is no longer the only valuation variable, you have to add in sentimental value. People place a higher value on physical items than market value: “This old recliner belonged to my grandma, it is virtually priceless to me and I am willing to spend up to $x amount of my disposable income to continue to poses it “. From a macro perspective this is akin to: “This old recliner belonged to Elvis and the market values it at $x” There is a market that is willing to pay $x to own the item just like in the grandma example, the person is willing to spend $x to continue owning it.
When I had my first apartment, it was tiny. After a few years there, I had a bit of a breakdown about how it felt so cluttered. So I rented a storage unit for one year and hauled most of my stuff down there. I told myself that if I missed an item enough to go fetch it, I could keep it but anything that was still in the storage unit after one year was going to be trashed, donated, or sold. 90% of the stuff was still in the unit at the end of the year so I clearly didn’t need it.
Not to mention, if it’s furniture or clothing, could get rodents nesting inside and destroy whatever you have very quickly. Not worth it for long term.
Monthly storage rental for 10×10 is like $250 near us for inside and climate controlled. I told my wife for $3k a year we could literally replace everything in there each year. It was a bunch of Christmas and Halloween decor. We just found room magically in our garage to store everything.
I hate that we have a storage unit for our family but it ultimately made sense for us. 10×20 unit for $92 a month. We store my MILs stuff, our sons (he’s a marine), our daughter will be moving her stuff into there shortly because she is moving to Europe for school, and then our stuff takes up just a little bit of room. So we have climate controlled, as secure as it can be, space for everyone. We are kind of hoping it’s only for about 4 years and after that we will figure next best steps.
Don’t assume the value of what I choose to store
I have seven rental units. I keep all kinds of construction materials in my storage. Like paint that matches the walls, replacement door knobs, random pieces of trim etc. Mostly specific matching items that will eventually go out of stock that I can use for repairs. But yeah you’re probably still right.
Throw in the likelihood of water leaks, mold, dry rot or rodents destroying the goods inside, and now you’re paying to store trash.
My dad did the same thing. Kept that storage unit stuffed with stuff for about 20 years. At $60 per month. When he died I didn’t even bother going through it. I surrendered it all to the place.
Once nuance: the value of your stuff is effectively zero in FMV but very high in replacement cost. Like for most people the FMV of their entire wardrobe might be 500 bucks. But in terms of replacement cost, factoring in time for shopping and transportation would really be in the thousands.
But yes, for the most part anything that suits in a storage unit for more than three months could be set on fire right then and there and in most cases you’d probably be better off for it.
Don’t always have a choice unfortunately. I have three motorcycle and a snapon box and tools in a unit and there’s nowhere else to put them. I work on my cars there and it is what it is.
Depends how often you actually access it, if you are storing it for 1+ year you are completely valid. If you are swapping stuff in and out of it it’s a different story, sure the cost might be more than the items, but you would be repurchasing those items multiple times.
Once you are gone, everything winds up in either the trash, sold, or given away. No one cares how long you paid to store your collections or vintage pieces.
It’s been ages since I worked in operations, but years ago, companies used a rule of thumb for storing a part. They used 1/3 the cost of an object to store it for a year.
Of course this is an oversimplification, and companies have more overhead than you personally. But I’ve used it in considering what to store vs throw away.
Me when I’m at the Smithsonian trying to convince the curator to give me a dinosaur bone
I have multiple relatives that have done this. If you are going to do this, periodically check your stuff. One of them ended up having to throw most of it away due to mold because of a leak.
A friend kept a storage unit for 27 years. When he could not pay for it some years, his parents paid for it. At the end he tried to give the stuff to his son, who didn’t want anything in it. Mainly because there was nothing of value, not even sentimental value. The unit was designed more for boat storage than keeping stuff dry and secure. Gravel base and corrugated walls. Stuff was things like rusted/seized motors, a broken go-cart, broken golf cart, some dented body panels from a non-valuable car (think 1990s honda), boxes of water damaged national geographics, burne out arc welder and a 70s era molded couch etc etc etc. Just junk. Basically paid $30K to keep junk then just quit paying when his son didn’t want any of it.
It’s nuts what some people do pay to keep.
I’ve got some friends that got into the self-storage business, and I’ve been surprised at just how successful it’s been given relative simplicity. They’ve got minimal overhead, organic occupancy in the high 90s, and it’s extremely sticky business once it comes through the door.
They’ll never have me as a customer, but it’s been cool to see it all unfold!
Yes, but you also have to factor in the value of the use of the object while it’s being stored. So, lets say you have a small apartment and a storage unit. Every year you store your holiday decorations and seasonal clothing in the unit. You are constantly swapping out coats and shorts and Xmas trees and pumpkins. In that case, renting the unit makes sense.
How are you defining car value? If you can replace it for that same cost, isn’t that just redundant? This is just all over the place.