If you knew it was going to cost you about 50k over the years...would you..?

[bumblebee1000]

Storage unit, if you knew you would spend 50k over the years...would you have just chucked the items or disposed of them before shoving them into a huge unit....my neighbour just told me this is how much she has spent over the years and items probably worth about £500 max !!

Absolutely no way, but I'm not even slightly sentimental about material things and I'm also quite tight 🤣

I would sell or donate the lot.

Save or invest the cost instead.

I considered a storage unit a few years ago but after looking up the monthly cost, hired a skip instead! No regrets

This is the storage unit business model.

And exactly why I don’t have one!

Thought you were talking about the cost of uni there!

Nope, but of course thats the business model- people pay every month and forget about it.

I'm very sentimental with a tendency to hang onto things that I think might come in handy one day but no way would I spend £50k on storage. That's crazy!

I agree we have a storage unit to deal with a loved one’s belongings. I wish I could face the pain but paying the monthly sum is easier.

I 100% would never do that

I actually want to put my table into storage but the prices are nuts

We had one for our youth group as I could no longer store everything at my house. Luckily we realised sooner than you neighbour but we managed to pay more in storage than the value stored in 3 yrs.

Has made me less of a consumer across all aspects of my life.

Nope! My neighbour has one and I know it’s costing £320 a month - we’ve lived here 5 years already. I had a fairly large shed built in my garden when I moved in (it was a new estate and we all moved in at similar times). The shed cost around 3k at the time, which my neighbour said was expensive but joked that it was ‘bigger than my lock up!’

5 years on, she’s still paying monthly, and she’s moaning about an upcoming price increase.

You've got to only use one for short term like a house move.

I do think that hoarding is a bit of a spectrum disorder and I'm on it. I went to boarding school and I think that's why - I had to clear out my room every term and also if you didn't have a thing (like a hairdryer) there was no easy way to go buy one and no one would buy one for you. As an adult I now have three hairdryers (why?!)

No chance. I’m about to move house and go into temporary rental for a few months, and all my possessions will be going to storage except clothing. I’m trying to get my possessions down to the bare minimum of just stuff I really value and want. Fortunately most of my furniture is cheap IKEA so it’s cheaper to dispose of it and buy something new for the new house, than to pay for storage.

Honestly I think this is an important eye opener for everyone. We were a group of well organised and experienced people. It was the thought of loosing the equipment we had bought as it has little resell value so I believe we just got dragged into it as an thing to do.

Your example is so clear . Out unit was the size of a large double bedroom cupboard. And back in 2023 was about £150 a month. There were huge units the size of garages in there so I couldn’t imagine how much they cost.

Out example was we owned a candy floss machine that w bought £200 as it was cheaper in the long term that paying someone to come and do it. Sensible? But then 1 years rent was £1800!!!!

Can’t believe non of us could see it . I’d advise anyone reading this thread to add up what’s in storage and then work out how long you can store it until is value neutral.

I wonder what the items are? Are they sentimental items?

I'm very organised but I have to be ruthless on some items. I don't like 'clutter'.

We like to travel and we kept a lot of memorabilia from places we went to for 'the first time'. We made albums which we called 'The Books of Firsts'. They contained photos, leaflets, itineraries, tickets etc.

I'll only occasionally flick through them now but I found this to be a good tip: take a photograph of the item instead of keeping it. A photo takes up a loss less space.

More recently I had some things that were my Dad's (my Mum asked me to take everything that was my Dad's out of their house after he passed away). I donated the bulk of it to charity but there were some things I couldn't part with (yet I know they are of no use!). So I've kept his glasses/glasses case, his favourite shirt, a stash of paperwork he kept when he went to New York (his favourite place), a few books and some cards.

I had still got my Dad's wrapped Christmas presents that I bought for him (that he never got to open); I kept those untouched for a while, but I unwrapped them myself last year and donated those to charity too.

I think a lot of things that we treasure, won't be treasured by someone else so perhaps we should just enjoy them in our own way.

The unit holds items when the daughter moved flats etc, but most of the items are from when neighbour split up with partner and had to leave a huge 4 bed flat and downsize to a one bed flat, the flat is also full of stuff. The furniture is too big for modern places, big tables and wardrobes etc, its a case of hanging onto the past, even tho its been about 16 years now.....such a waste of money over the years clinging onto memories.

My aunt and uncle down in Cornwall have one, and have probably had it at least a decade, if not more. I don't know how big it is, but honestly, I dread to think how much it has cost them.
Unfortunately, my uncle died back in May, and my aunt is is poor health and physically very weak. So I can't imagine that the storage unit is high on her list of priorities.