7 Uses for Short Term Storage

When I was asked about short-term storage, I thought back to when I found my first box. I was outside playing ball with my dog back home in Pasadena. He was a Boston Terrier, and we named him Beagle because he brayed like a hound. The ball rolled right up against a beautiful brown box abandoned near the street. I had not yet encountered a cube in my life, and I thought its proportions were pleasant. I started collecting more and more cubes, and since then my passion for cubes launched me into the self-storage industry. I love self-storage, and short-term storage often gets overlooked in the discussion. Our blog has covered long-term storage before; today, I’ll make sure short-term storage sees its day.

boxes short term storage pile of boxes

When to Use Short-Term Storage

Short-term storage is usually considered to be less than three months. Quite a handy time frame, if you ask me. Some self-storage companies only offer timeframes of six months or more, but then you may overpay for the extra time you don’t need. There are plenty of situations where you could better benefit from short-term storage.

  1. Moving

Let’s say you’re planning on moving in one month. You are starting to get organized for the move, but you can’t take everything over to the new house until the sale officially closes. However, you also want to declutter. Hear the golden bell of short-term storage ringing throughout the land! If you answer the call, as I did, you can start to clear out the house during the interim period between the move.

  1. Bad Breakups

Love is cheap, and so is short-term storage. Co-habitating is a big step in a relationship, and conflict is inevitable. In some cases, couples/polymeric groups grow closer as they learn to navigate conflict. Their relationship, like fatigued muscle fibers, responds to damage by becoming stronger. However, “love” often evaporates in heated arguments and hurtful comments about how foosball isn’t a real sport, even though it is and requires a great deal of skill, and certainly more skill than watching reruns of Degrassi every night instead of working on the daily crossword puzzle like we used to. When things end, you may need somewhere to store your Foosball table while you try and find a new place to stay. Short-term storage is the perfect solution.

  1. Short Remodels

Short-term storage is convenient for when you need to move things out of a room while you’re doing small-scale remodels. If you have a small garage or limited space in your house, you can rent a storage unit for a month or two to keep your things safe and your home decluttered.

  1. Lying Low

When things go south, you gotta lay low for a while. Sometimes going to a friends or family members house isn’t safe enough. Setting up shop in a storage unit for a month or two is more incognito.

  1. Flexibility

Setting up a month-to-month deal on a storage unit is helpful if you are uncertain how long you may be away. For example, if you’re in the army reserves you may be deployed for an uncertain amount of time. Or perhaps your work requires you to travel and work on projects that you don’t know how long it will take.  Again, long-term storage is more expensive if you end up coming back earlier than expected. Starting with a short-term contract allows for more flexibility.

  1. Long-Term Storage Trauma

I can’t speak to your experience, but short-term storage can help heal the wounds caused by traumatic experiences with long-term storage. Time doesn’t heal all wounds; we have to be honest with ourselves and reflect on our damages. Once you are comfortable enough to take the first steps to leave the past behind, short-term storage will be there for you.

  1. Holding Extra Inventory

For small business owners, short-term storage provides space to hold extra inventory if there isn’t room in your store/office. You still have easy access, and once room frees up again in your place of business you can move everything out without having to pay a cancellation fee on a long-term storage unit.

Don’t Sleep on Short-Term Storage

Short-term storage has been a passion of mine ever since I got into the industry. They are agile investments and can save you a lot of money in situations when long-term storage isn’t necessary. I could write a dissertation on the benefits, but these uses for short-term storage are a good introduction.

If you’d like to know more about the benefits of short-term storage, contact us at Albuquerque Self-Storage today!

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