Storage units are for stashing out-of-season clothes, family heirlooms, and holiday decorations during the off-season — they’re not for moving, are they? Actually, renting a storage unit can make your move much easier, because it can give you the extra space you need to store clutter during the staging process, find wiggle room in your moving timeline, and even save on a moving truck.

Stage Your Home                                                                              

Is staging your home the worst part of moving? Maybe not, but it sure is a pain. You have to make your home look streamlined, spotless, and well-appointed — despite the fact that you still live there and so do your kids, pets, and belongings. Where are you supposed to put all of your stuff while you’re staging your home for potential buyers to come in and poke around in your closets? Whether you’re looking for storage units in Spokane or Sarasota, it’s easy to find a cheap unit that’s big enough to store all of your clutter during the staging process.

Adjust Your Moving Timeline

When you have a short window to move out of your old place and into the new, moving can get hectic. But you don’t need to pressure yourself to move all at once. When you rent a storage unit, you can move your stuff a little at a time, so you don’t have to cram your whole move into a few days.

Or maybe you’re working with the opposite timeline, where you have to wait a while after moving out of your old house before you can move into your new house. That’s common when you have to sell your previous home before you can close on your new home, and lots of people use storage units to store their things while they’re waiting to get the keys to their next abode. A storage unit lets you stop stressing out about where you’re going to put your stuff so you can focus on figuring out where you’re going to put yourself.

Save Money on a Moving Truck

Few things can be as tiring as moving day — loading everything you own onto a truck, driving it across town or across the country, and unloading it again. If you have even a modest-sized home, you’re going to need a big truck to fit all of your stuff, and that’s going to cost more, as well as being more work on moving day.

You can space out the effort by packing up your smaller stuff into boxes and moving it into a storage unit with your car, saving the truck for just the big stuff. You’ll be able to get by with a smaller truck — and you might even be able to avoid paying for a truck at all, because lots of storage unit facilities will give a free moving truck rental to unit leaseholders. Clean out your closets, garage, basement, attic, and spare bedroom early. Pack up that spare set of pots and pans. Move a little at a time and save your back and sanity.

Simplify Moving Day

Having all your stuff packed up in boxes in one place can help you stay organized while moving, allowing you to get a big picture view of your possessions so you can better plan your move. You won’t have to worry about packing your stuff on the truck in the right order so you can get it out at the right moment when you’re unpacking into your new place. You can organize your storage unit with the stuff you need most at the front, where it’s accessible, and settle into your new home at your own pace, without having to live amongst towers of boxes for weeks while you try to fit unpacking everything into your schedule.

Scale Up or Down Easily

Downsizing? You can harness the extra space provided by a storage unit to organize your stuff while you figure out what fits in your new place and what you want there. You can even hang on to the unit to stash stuff you need to keep but don’t have room for in the new place.

Are you moving into a bigger place? You’ll probably need some new furniture and decor, but you don’t have to wait until you’re moved in an unpacked to go shopping. You can use a storage unit to stash your new stuff while you wait to upgrade your living situation.

Moving is hard enough without expecting yourself to do it all at once in one marathon of packing and carrying everything in your home. Move a little at a time with a storage unit. As you settle into your new home with less stress and less clutter, you’ll be glad you bought yourself the gift of a little extra space.