After running out of room to store items in your home, you have two options: get rid of some belongings or find storage. If you have every intention of keeping your possessions, then you will want to rent a storage unit. It is an option to get a storage unit on your own, but you should see if any family members want to collaborate and share a unit with you in an effort to minimize costs for both of you. Before signing a lease, you should take advantage of other opportunities to directly and indirectly increase your savings.
Inspect the Belongings Together
Two or three minds are better than one, especially when it comes to smart ideas. Therefore, you should go through the items that you intend to store with the family members you are going to share a storage unit with to see if you can optimize storage space. As long as you clearly label boxes, you can easily put items that belong to multiple people in the same box to keep space consumption to a minimum.
Create a Mock Setup
Only having an idea of how much space you need is not a good thing to go off of for renting a storage unit, so everyone should get an accurate idea of how much space they need. Whether it is boxes, bags, furniture, or equipment, you should use a portion of your home to set up a mock layout. Then you can take measurements to see exactly how much room you need to successfully store your possessions.
Find a Low-Cost Facility
City center storage facilities have higher operating costs, so they are going to cost more than businesses that operate farther away. The best way to find a low-cost storage location is to mark where all of your family members live that you are going to share a storage unit with on a map, and then add markers for the possible storage places. Ideally, you should prioritize the ones that are close to the same distance from each person, and then you will want to see how far everyone is willing to drive to save money.
Open Up Negotiations
Negotiating is not a common thing for people to do when looking at storage units, but it is not something you should pass up, especially if you want to put in effort to save more money. To increase your potential savings, you should let the storage unit manager make the first offer. If you look at competitors that are further out of the city, you will be able to use their lower prices to improve your negotiation power.
Collaborating with your family is an effective way to save on storage, and investing time and effort into preparing for renting a storage unit will help you save the most amount of money. Contact a company like Gray Storage Solutions to get started.
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