What to Know:

• The United States has far more self-storage space per person than most other countries.
• Life changes, limited space at home, and emotional attachments help explain why people rent storage units. 
• What starts as a temporary storage solution can become a long-term expense, especially when monthly rental rates increase. 

ORLANDO, Fla. – Have you ever heard of döstädning?

No, that’s not a typo; it’s actually a Swedish word. The philosophy behind döstädning is that as you get older, you begin sorting through and reducing your possessions, giving away, selling, or discarding things you no longer need. The Swedish term translates roughly to “death cleaning.” Here in the United States, the practice is more commonly known as Swedish Death Cleaning.

Harsh, but there’s a story behind the name.

The practice was popularized internationally by the 2017 book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson. And aside from making your home easier and more pleasant to live in, Swedish Death Cleaning has one main purpose: sparing your family or loved ones the burden of figuring out what to do with all your stuff after you’ve died.

Which, in a very roundabout way (or a very direct one, take your pick), brings us to today’s Dollars & Sense topic: storage units. While the Swedes have a name for getting rid of things, Americans have built an enormous industry around keeping them.

And enormous may be an understatement.

From furniture we no longer use to boxes we haven’t opened in years, millions of us are paying monthly rent for possessions we no longer have room for in our everyday lives.

America’s love affair with storage units

According to the Self Storage Association (SSA), the United States has approximately 64,000 self-storage facilities.

To put that into perspective, that’s more physical locations than Dollar General (20,400), Starbucks (16,700), and McDonald’s (14,100) stores combined. In fact, throw in Best Buy stores (900), Walmart locations (4,600), Lowe’s (1,800) and Home Depot (2,000), and you still come up short trying to equal the footprint of storage facilities in the country.

Think about that for a moment.

We have more places to store our possessions than we have locations of some of the country’s most recognizable retail and restaurant chains combined. That’s a lot of space devoted to possessions we apparently don’t have enough room for in our homes. But the numbers become even more interesting when we compare the United States with the rest of the world.

According to commercial real estate firm Savills, the United States has approximately seven square feet of self-storage space for every person in the country. In the United Kingdom, it’s less than one square foot per person. Across continental Europe, the average is closer to one-third of a square foot.

In other words, Americans have more than seven times as much commercial storage space per person as the British, and more than 20 times as much as continental Europeans. And that’s despite the number of self-storage facilities across the United Kingdom and Europe more than tripling between 2012 and 2023.

And Americans aren’t just devoting an enormous amount of space to storing their possessions; they’re spending billions of dollars doing it. According to market research firm Grand View Research, the U.S. self-storage industry generated almost $24.2 billion in revenue in 2025.

With tens of thousands of storage facilities, far more storage space per person than most other countries, and billions of dollars spent annually, the obvious question is: why? Are Americans simply buying too much stuff? Are our homes becoming too small for everything we own? Or is there something about our relationship with possessions that makes getting rid of them so difficult?

It’s not one thing – it’s many

The easy answer as to why we have so many storage units: Americans simply have too much stuff. Yes, it’s an easy answer – but it’s far from the whole story.

For some people, renting a storage unit is a matter of necessity.

They’re moving between homes, downsizing, going through a divorce, or dealing with the death of a family member. Others may be temporarily relocating for work, attending college, or living in housing that doesn’t have enough room for their belongings. Sometimes, storage now is simply more practical than replacing everything later.

And for some small-business owners, storage units serve as micro-warehouses for inventory, equipment, and supplies.

But there’s another side to the equation, one that has less to do with available space and more to do with our emotional attachment to possessions.

That old dining room table may not fit in your house anymore, but it belonged to your parents. Those boxes of childhood keepsakes may never be opened, but throwing them away feels like throwing away memories. And then there’s the stuff we convince ourselves we’ll need someday.

The exercise equipment we haven’t used in years.

Furniture we’re saving for a future home.

Albums, records, cassettes, and videotapes we hope someday will be worth a small fortune.

And then there are the boxes of things we haven’t looked at since the day we moved them into storage.

We aren’t always storing things because we need them. Sometimes we’re storing them because we’re not ready to let them go. Getting rid of those possessions requires making a decision, and the self-storage industry has made postponing that decision remarkably easy.

And that may be where the financial trouble begins.

The cost of holding on

It often starts with an attractive offer: a discounted introductory rate, a deal that makes renting a storage unit seem almost too good to pass up, or even the first month’s rent for as little as $1.

But that introductory price doesn’t last forever.

In its 2025 annual report, Public Storage, one of the nation’s largest self-storage operators, acknowledges offering promotional discounts – including first-month rentals for as little as $1 – but adds that it typically increases rental rates for long-term customers every six to 12 months (generally beginning with customers who have rented for at least five months).

According to Extra Space Storage’s 2025 annual report, new leases at its established facilities averaged $13.16 per square foot annually, compared with $19.91 per occupied square foot across all renters (after discounts and bad debt). That’s a difference of approximately 51%.

Those figures don’t mean every customer’s rent increased by 51% – instead, they compare rates on new leases with average rental revenue from occupied storage space. The data illustrates how rates offered to new customers can be considerably lower than the amounts a facility collects from its existing customer base.

A storage unit can start off for $1 a month, but once the introductory offer ends and the rent reaches $100 a month, that unit will cost $1,200 a year. Keep it for five years, and you’ve spent $6,000, assuming the rent never increases.

And what if the rent goes up by 10% every year?

Over five years, that same unit would cost approximately $7,326. And that doesn’t include insurance (at some facilities mandatory unless you have homeowners or renters insurance), administrative fees, or other charges. For some renters, those costs may eventually exceed the value of everything they’re storing.

Of course, there’s always the option of moving out – but that comes with costs of its own.

Emptying a storage unit may mean renting a truck, hiring movers, spending an entire weekend sorting possessions you’ve been avoiding for years, and the elephant in the room: finding somewhere else to put your stuff. And if you’re considering switching to a less expensive facility, you have to decide whether the potential savings justify the time, labor, and expense of moving said stuff.

Which brings us back to the problem we started with: sometimes it’s easier (though not financially better) to keep paying for storage than to make the decisions necessary to stop.

Before You Store It, Consider This

There’s nothing inherently wrong with renting a storage unit.

For some people, it’s the practical solution to a temporary problem. For others, it’s a necessary expense that makes their living or working arrangements more manageable. But before signing a rental agreement, there are a few things worth considering.

• Know what you’re actually paying for: Don’t make your decision based solely on an introductory offer. Find out what the regular monthly rate will be, whether the company can increase it, how much notice you’ll receive before an increase, and what additional charges, including insurance and administrative fees, may apply. 
• Do the long-term math: Again, that $100 monthly rental may not seem like much, but it adds up to $1,200 a year. Ask yourself whether the belongings you’re storing are worth the expense, particularly if you’re planning to keep them there indefinitely. And don’t lose sight of this: the value of something isn’t always measured in dollars – sometimes, its sentimental value matters more. 
• Have an exit strategy: If you’re renting a unit for a temporary need, establish a realistic timeline for emptying it. If you already have one, consider periodically reviewing what’s inside and whether you still need to keep everything. Downsizing may be the first step. Moving out may take some work, but continuing to pay for storage comes with a cost of its own.

And perhaps the most important question of all: are you paying to preserve something you genuinely value, or simply paying to avoid deciding what to do with it?

Which brings us back to döstädning.

You don’t have to embrace Swedish Death Cleaning to recognize there’s something liberating about letting go of things you no longer need. There’s nothing wrong with holding on to possessions that matter to us, but knowing when to let them go can be just as important.

After all, the longer we hold on to our possessions, the more they can end up costing us.