When storage starts to overflow at home or in your storage unit and you aren’t quite sure what to do with all your belongings, you might be ready to turn to a favorite old-fashioned solution: the yard sale. This time-honored tradition is not only fun, but having a weekend sale allows you to streamline your storage while also making a little money.
When your items are held in a self storage unit, it’s not quite as easy to hold a yard sale. After all, most storage facilities are accessible only by gated, electronic access (for your safety), so it’s not like you can stick a sign out front and invite people to peruse your wares. In fact, if you do want to sell the items in your storage unit, you’ll need to move them out and take them home (or bring them to a larger, community yard sale at a church or other rec center space).
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t prepare for a yard sale at your storage unit. There is something about this off-site, accessible space that makes getting ready for a yard sale easy. Here’s how.
Preparing for a Yard Sale
Use Your Storage Space with the Plan of Someday Selling the Items: The reasons for getting a self storage unit vary, but one idea is to slowly rotate the things out of your house you wouldn’t mind selling someday. Start small—say, with a few boxes of books, furniture you’ve outgrown, or electronics you’ve since upgraded—and build from there. In time, your storage unit will become a space of things you no longer need or use. Perfect items for a yard sale.
Sort Your Storage Unit According to Need: The way you arrange your storage unit is entirely up to you, but some people find that they can sort through items better in a storage space than they can at home. Place items you plan on using again someday against one wall and leave the other open for items you’re considering selling or getting rid of. If you find yourself rarely opening the boxes earmarked for sale, it’s probably a safe bet you can go ahead and put them up in a yard sale.
Store Items until You’re Ready for the Sale: In almost all cases, the larger the yard sale, the better it does. Since you’ll be most likely paying for an advertisement, setting everything up, and putting in your time for this, you want to make sure you have enough items to sell to make it worth your while. Use a storage unit to start collecting items to sell. You can encourage family members and friends to contribute, or even take advantage of storage auctions to build up your inventory.
Start Pricing Early: One of the most time-consuming tasks of a yard sale is pricing everything. Take your time by pricing your items in the storage unit when you place them there. You can even arrange the boxes according to value to make it easy when it comes time to put everything up for sale.
There is no better way to organize your home and your belongings than with a self storage unit. It doesn’t matter whether you’re ready to start setting up a yard sale today, or if you’re considering the possibility of one in the distant future. By using your storage unit to help arrange things now, you can enjoy a clutter-free home and still hold that yard sale for some extra cash.
