What is a Self Storage Unit
As a professional organizer with experience supporting international relocations and moves across the Netherlands, I’ve seen self-storage stealthily morph from a “temporary solution” into a vexing problem. This article is meant to help you decide what to declutter, move, or let go of before a relocation—rather than paying to store things indefinitely.
Storage-unit limbo is expensive, inconvenient, and more stressful than you would expect.
Let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing.
A self-storage facility is that place on the edge of town (or sometimes, right in the city) made up of long corridors or outdoor grids of identical metal boxes. Roll-up doors. Fluorescent lighting. A faint smell of dust, cardboard, and postponed intentions. Inside those boxes live people’s extra stuff: furniture they might need “one day,” boxes labeled Misc, an elliptical that’s mostly storing guilt, not cardio, and objects that once felt too important to decide about.
If you’ve never been to one, imagine a library—but instead of books carefully curated by librarians, it’s thousands of unfinished decisions quietly accruing monthly fees.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth:
With rare exceptions, putting things into storage is delayed decision-making.
Not bad decision-making. Not lazy decision-making. Just a decision to decide later. And “later” has a inconvenient way of becoming much later than expected.
How Temporary Storage Lingers After Moves and Relocations
Storage can feel like a grown-up security blanket. Not because you love the stuff— but because you don’t know what the future holds.
“I can’t predict what Future Me will need, so I’ll pay to keep my options open.”
It’s completely understandable—AND it’s also how “temporary” quietly turns into “indefinite,” one monthly autopay at a time. People consistently underestimate how long they’ll keep a storage unit. What begins as “just three months” has a way of stretching into three years. Life fills in, the unit slips out of daily awareness, and the meter keeps running.
Storage feels cheap . . .
Until you add:
- Monthly fees
- Regular rate increases
- Mandatory insurance
- Occasional access costs
- The emotional tax of knowing your stuff is somewhere
And all of this while the value of most stored items is going down, not up.
The Real Cost of Renting a Storage Unit
If an item is being considered for storage, you’re standing at an inflection point.Once it goes into storage, you are choosing to live without it in your day-to-day life. You won’t be using it, seeing it, or relying on it. Your routines will adjust around its absence—often more easily than expected.
Storage doesn’t preserve how you live now. It preserves a future possibility—the idea that this item might matter again later, in a different version of your life. Once you see that storage is about preserving possibility—not necessity—it becomes easier to ask a practical question: what is that possibility actually costing you?
A Simple Reality Check: Is Storage Actually Worth It?
Step 1: Estimate the true storage cost
Start with the monthly fee and multiply it by how long you think you’ll need the unit.
Then double it.
Seriously. Most people underestimate.
Example:
€120 × 12 months (your estimate) = €1,440
€120 × 24 months (more realistic) = €2,880
That’s what “temporary” often costs.
Step 2: Note how storage is actually priced
It’s generally priced per storage unit.
Yes, storage units come in different sizes — but you’re still renting the entire space, whether it’s full or half empty. You don’t pay less because there are only three boxes inside. Which means every item you store is quietly competing to justify the cost of the whole unit.
If one chair is all you truly want to keep, you’re still paying €120 a month for that chair.
If five “maybe useful” boxes are left, you’re still paying €120 a month for those five boxes.
And once you’ve paid for the space, the space starts making the decisions for you. It becomes easier to keep things simply because there’s room.
Step 3: Estimate the replacement value
Now forget what you originally paid. Often, replacing only what you truly miss later costs far less than long-term storage fees.
Step 4: Compare
Put the numbers side by side:
Storage: €2,880
Replacement: € ___
If storage costs more than replacing what matters, you’re not preserving value — you’re paying to postpone a decision.
Step 5: Choose the best option
Let it go
Replace later if needed
Or keep only what clearly earns its space
If storage is the most expensive option, it’s probably not practical — just comfortable.
Why Storage Decisions Are So Hard to Make
Several very human biases quietly drive us to store things instead of letting them go:
1. The Endowment Effect
We overvalue our own things simply because they’re ours. That sofa feels special because you have a history with it—not because it’s worth storing for years
2. The Sunk Cost Fallacy
“I paid good money for this” is not the same as “this still deserves space in my life.”
The sunk cost fallacy shows up like this:
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- You spent money on something (furniture, gear, décor, hobby supplies).
- Admitting you don’t want/need it now feels like admitting you “wasted” money.
- So instead of deciding, you store it.
- And then… you spend more money every month to avoid facing that original truth.
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A good reset question:
“If this item were free today, would I choose it and make room for it in my home—or would I politely decline?”
3. The Optimism Bias
We assume future-us will be more motivated, less busy, and delighted to deal with storage. Unlikely. Future-you is tired. Future-you is annoyed. Future-you has better taste.
Why Most Items Lose Value in Storage
With a few exceptions—art, true antiques, irreplaceable heirlooms—most household items depreciate.
Furniture goes out of style. Electronics age. Clothes quietly become “Why did I ever like this?”
The longer items sit in storage, the less connected you feel to them. You remember less clearly what’s even there, and inertia quietly takes over. Not because you’ve decided the items are worth keeping—but because stopping storage isn’t just a mental decision. It means doing the work: opening boxes, sorting, discarding, selling, donating, or transporting. Continuing to pay becomes the path of least resistance.
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The less emotionally attached you feel to them
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The less clearly you remember what’s even there
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The harder it feels to justify the cost
That combination—fading interest, fading memory, and rising inertia—is how storage quietly shifts from a short-term solution into a long-term burden.
Storage Unit decisions for International Relocation and Overseas Moves require extra scrutiny
If you’re moving abroad, storage deserves extra scrutiny.
People heading overseas often imagine they’ll “deal with it when they’re back.” But returning to a storage unit later can mean:
- Expensive international travel
- Coordinating access from another country
- Jet lag + dust + regret
I had a colleague who flew from Canada to New Zealand—six years after loading a storage unit—just to sort through it.
He returned to work wearing a spectacularly ugly sweater vest he’d apparently decided was worth keeping after all. I couldn’t help thinking of a friend’s warning to me years earlier:
“Don’t store anything. Your taste will change. And you’ll forget what you even have.”
She was right. I took her advice before a two-year overseas assignment and let go of almost everything.
IRecently I met a young woman whose Colorado storage unit became the bane of her existence after multiple international moves. She had discovered her unit had been broken into—adding stress, insurance claims, and heartbreak to an already complicated life. And when she realized she no longer wanted what was in the unit, she needed to hire a professional organzier to clean it out, remotely.
Storage doesn’t pause your responsibility.
It just exports it to the future—with interest.
If you’re preparing for an international move, don’t forget your digital life either — things like phone numbers, banking apps, and two-factor authentication can create just as much friction as physical clutter. I share a simple checklist here: How to Prepare Your Digital Life for an International Move.
When Someone Else Pays for Storage
“But My Company Is Paying for Storage!”
This feels like a win. A perk. A bonus.
And financially, yes—someone else is covering the bill for now.
But make no mistake:
You still own the decision.
Eventually:
- The contract ends
- The assignment ends
- The storage offer ends
And you are still the one who has to deal with what’s inside.
Out of sight does not mean out of mind. It just becomes low-grade mental clutter.
Risks to consider when choosing to store your stuff
Even well-run storage facilities carry risks:
- Theft & break-ins
- Water damage, mold, pests
- Fire or flooding
- Poor climate control damaging photos, paper, electronics
Storage units are not museums. They’re warehouses of compromise.
When Renting a Storage Unit Can Make Sense
Sometimes storage can make sense:
- A clearly finite period during a renovation or short move
- Truly irreplaceable, sentimental items
- Objects with enduring value, NOT “maybe useful someday”
If you go this route:
- Photograph everything
- If possible, take a video of what is where in the unit – while your memory is fresh.
- Make an inventory
- Label clearly
This gives you the option to have a local professional empty the unit on your behalf later—without an international flight and an existential crisis.
A Special Warning About “Storing at Your Parents’ House”
This one feels harmless. Even generous. And in the short term, it often is.
Parents may have space and are happy to help. You tell yourself it’s temporary.
But parents also have lives. Their homes are not static environments, and they are not thinking about your stored belongings with the same mental sticky notes you are. What feels like “safe for now” can quietly turn into “indefinitely”—even faster than a paid storage unit, precisely because there’s no monthly bill to prompt a decision.
I learned this the hard way.
I once stored something precious at my parents’ house for safekeeping—a lamp from my grandmother that I adored. Two months before I returned to North America, my mother donated it. She didn’t mean harm. After nearly two years, she simply didn’t remember that the lamp tucked into the basement corner was being kept for me.
All the same issues that come with paid storage exist at “the folks’ house”—and then some:
- Blurred expectations about time and responsibility
- Emotional complexity layered onto a practical decision
- The ease with which “temporary” becomes open-ended
In some ways, family storage drifts even more easily than rented storage, because nothing is nudging the decision forward.
Rule of thumb: If you wouldn’t pay to store it, don’t outsource it to family.
The Question That Matters Most
Before renting a storage unit, ask:
“Am I protecting something truly meaningful—or am I protecting myself from making a decision?”
Storage isn’t inherently bad.
But most of the time, it’s not a solution—it’s a postponement.
And postponed decisions don’t stay still.
They age. They cost. They gather dust.
And occasionally, they come back as sweater vests.
The alternative is to let go early. Choose wisely.
Feeling stuck between storing and letting go? I help clients make clear decisions before a move turns complicated. Book a free consultation.
Sheila Carroll is a professional organizer and KonMari® consultant based in Amsterdam, helping clients declutter, prepare for moves, and navigate international relocations across Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, The Hague, and virtually worldwide.
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