Smart Decluttering Tips Before Renting Storage (2025)

Alright, let’s have a real talk about clutter. I’m not a minimalist guru; I’m someone who once paid for a storage unit for two years that essentially held a broken futon, three boxes of college textbooks, and a terrifying collection of mismatched Tupperware lids. I was basically setting fire to eighty dollars a month.

So, learn from my very expensive mistake. The goal of a storage unit isn’t to hide your clutter—it’s to protect your valuable, needed, or beloved stuff. The trick is knowing the difference before you rent the space. Doing this right will save you so much money and stress.

Here’s how you actually do it, without losing your mind.

First, Stop Thinking “Room by Room.”

That’s a trap. If you start in the garage, you’ll find stuff from the kitchen, the living room, and your old hobbies. You’ll just be running in circles.

Instead, go category by category. This was a game-changer for me.

Pick one single type of item. Just one. “Today, I’m doing all my books.” Pull every single book from every shelf, box, and bedside table in the house and put them in one giant pile in the living room. You will be shocked at how many copies of the same John Grisham novel you own. Seeing the entire category in one overwhelming mountain forces you to make real choices. It’s so much easier to say, “Okay, I only need to keep my absolute favorites,” when you see you have fifty novels.

Do this with clothes, then kitchenware, then linens. It works.

Your New Best Friends: Three Bins

Grab three bins or big boxes. Label them:

1. The “Heck Yes” Box: This is for stuff you genuinely love, use regularly, or absolutely need. Your good skillet. Your winter coat. Your photo albums. This is your future storage unit stuff.
2. The “Someone Else’s Problem” Box: For anything that is still good but just isn’t your thing anymore. This isn’t a trash box; it’s a donation box. It feels good to know your old stuff will help someone else.
3. The “Bye Felicia” Box: This is for garbage. The broken things, the expired products, the random cords to electronics you haven’t seen since 2012. Be merciless.

The Questions That Actually Work

When you’re holding something and feel stuck, ask yourself these questions. I stole them from organizing pros, and they work:

• “Have I used this in the past year?” If not, you probably won’t. Toss it in the donation box.
• “If I saw this in a store today, would I buy it again?” This cuts through the nostalgia. You might have loved that decorative owl in 2005, but would you spend money on it now? Probably not.
• “Is this worth $10 a month to store?“ Because that’s what you’re doing. That box of old VHS tapes might cost you $120 a year. Is that really a good use of your money?

Dealing with the “Maybe” Stuff

This is the hardest part. You’ll have things you feel guilty about getting rid of. For that, I use the “Box It and Date It” method.

Get a box. Write today’s date on it and “MAYBE.” Put all the guilt-inducing items in there—the gifts you never liked, the jeans that might fit again, the craft supplies for a hobby you haven’t touched. Seal it.

Put it in the back of a closet. If you haven’t gone into that box in six months to retrieve something, you are not allowed to open it. You just take the whole box straight to the donation center. You won’t even remember what’s in it, I promise.

How This Makes You a Storage Unit Genius

When you finally do this work, something amazing happens. You realize you need a way, way smaller storage unit than you thought. Maybe you just need a 5×5 instead of a 10×10. That’s hundreds of dollars saved every year.

And when you bring your carefully curated “Heck Yes” boxes to us at Plaza Mini Storage, you’ll know exactly what’s in there. You’ll have a neat, organized, and logical unit. You won’t be paying us to store your garbage, and when you need your Christmas decorations or your off-season clothes, you can actually find them in under five minutes.

That’s the goal. We provide a clean, safe, and affordable space for the things you truly care about. The first step to smart storage is being smart about what you keep. Now go tackle your books. You can do this.