Big Yellow self storage
About 18 months ago stuff was building up in the flat and we seriously considered the option of moving to a bigger place. We also wanted a garden and an extra room that would work as an office and a study. We did the figures and found that we could have just about got the money together but would have struggled a bit with the regular mortgage repayments. After some consideration we came up with a compromise. And that was to get an allotment garden and self storage.
So all the non-essential and seldom used items were packed up and moved to the newly acquired storage room. What sort of things? Things like the christmas tree stand, suitcases, old diaries, packing cartons etc. Items that you wouldn’t necessarily discard but use only now and again. Only about £40 a month so it was much cheaper than the cost of a new mortgage. Space at last. Or so we thought.
This was the smallest and cheapest storage room that they had on offer but month by month the rates kept increasing until 18 months down the line it was more like £45. Still cheaper than what a new mortgage would have cost for a bigger place, but there came a point when we started to wonder what the hell was in there. I remember taking a notepad and writing it all down. And of course some things were inside cardboard boxes so not too easy to get to. Around that time we also noticed that we had had an attack of the moths. Some items just had to be discarded.
Around the 18 month mark we calculated that we had spent in the region of £750. And you know what we realised? That was more than the value of the items in there. Shocked, surprised and flabbergasted we considered putting an end to it.
- It was a pain to get there, even though it wasn’t too far away.
- We had forgotten about most of the things in there.
- How many times had we used most of the things in there over that time?
- Had we missed any of things in there?
- Did any of the items have any real value or meaning for us
- Could we bite the bullet and just let go?
Well, we did bite the bullet and cleared all the stuff out. We made 3 lists: discard, sell and keep. It was a good feeling just to throw some of those things away. Old packing boxes which for some reason I saw a need to keep. Other things we sold on ebay and the last few items are on the pending list. Will I ever read those old diaries again?
The real question is do I really value these items more than their monetary value? And am I ready to let them go? I wasn’t ready to let go of some of those things 18 months ago but I am now. And hopefully in a few months time I’ll feel ready to let go of some of the other things too. It’s not easy, but once it’s done it sure does feel good. As the saying goes, “Use it or lose it”.