As connoisseurs of stuff, we collect things over the years we don’t really need. Clothes that we’ll never wear again without going back in time (perhaps not even then in retrospect). Worn shoes that need a generous amount of tape, glue, and wishful thinking to keep together. Knickknacks that collect so much dust they’d require a leaf blower to remove it all. Furniture so old that even the family pet refuses to sneak onto its surface for a quick nap. When so much stuff clutters our homes, does keeping it really make much economic sense?
There are many reason why we might want to keep these items, but over time, too many of them leads to overcrowding. When there’s enough stuff in a home to cause concern that it might burst at the seams at any moment, some owners turn to external storage as a remedy. Extra storage means paying for something you already own.
Paying an external storage provider a monthly fee to keep stuff you don’t need is a drain on money that can be used for other things. Do you need to replace a tired dishwasher, worn car tires, or a lumpy mattress? Spending money to store stuff you’ll probably never use again takes away cash you can use today. If you sell these items instead of storing them, you’ll not only save on monthly storage fees, you may also generate the cash you need to buy the things you can use.
I like to think of excess stuff as dessert at the end of a good meal. Do I really need it? If not, why eat it?
Oh, I might indulge periodically. A slice of cheesecake on occasion or a delightful donut won’t necessarily blow my diet, as long as these extravagances aren’t frequent. The same can be also said for excess stuff.
The shirt someone wore on a first date with a spouse, a collection of love letters inherited from a relative, or an ugly vase a person broke and glued back together with a parent can all have special meaning. These things don’t take much storage room. A set of old rims and tires, used appliances, worn furniture, and massive mounds of old paperwork do take a lot room. Too much room. This type of stuff can be found in storage units around the country, and none of it will probably be of any future use to their owners.
Instead of spending dough to store useless stuff, sell that junk in the trunk and use the cash for things you want and need today.