I have been working for Ahavas Yisrael for over 43 years, counseling hundreds of families and individuals on financial matters. You’d be surprised at what I have found to be one of the biggest wastes of money: It is storage expenses!
Years ago, I was
working with an individual on a budget as he was falling short every month,
going into heavier debt every year. I discovered that he was paying $200 each
month for storage. I asked, “What are you storing in your storage space, and
how long have you been paying storage?” He told me he had a few massage tables
that he used when he had a massage business 10 years before and that the tables
were worth about $3,000. I looked him in the eye and said, “You spent $24,000
for 10 years of storage for something you think you could sell for $3,000.” (That
is 600 gallons of gas at $4.00/gallon to fill your car.) The fact is that the
tables could maybe fetch $800 to $900, if he is lucky.
Storage should be
used solely for short periods of time to keep items safe and secure. Sometimes
people store furniture or family heirlooms that have sentimental value, but
there always needs to be a clear plan for removal. When people store things
without a plan to remove them from storage, often, years go by, and they do no
realize the storage fees will total much more than the items are worth.
People often have
a problem separating themselves from possessions. I know one woman who owes
over $7,000 for the storage of seven fur coats she has not worn for many years.
The furrier threatened to sell the coats to recoup his storage fees, and the
woman paid a small installment $600 to delay such action. I predict that she
will never pay the storage, and will never wear the coats. They will either be
sold for lack of payment or upon her death. When I questioned her about wasting
money, she said she needed the coats to stay warm!
Of course, there
is such a thing as “hoarding,” which is a psychological disorder. But if you
are not in that category, and you are paying storage, assess what you have in
storage, what it is costing you, and when you plan to take it out of storage. Does
it pay to sell it and use the funds for something else? Could you put the items
in a dry basement or closet in your home? Could you give it to a family member
or to a needy person who will enjoy it and use it? Or perhaps you can donate it
to a charity for a tax deduction. (If so, keep your tax records for seven years,
and check with your accountant when they can be shredded.)
One final story a
true one of three Jewish brothers. When the parents died, the sons sold off all
the valuable things from their parent’s residence. They kept what they thought
was junk and placed it in the attic of one of the brothers. After many years, they
took the items to an auctioneer to rid themselves of the stuff they figured
might fetch a few thousand dollars. There were two paintings among the stuff that
had hung in the parent’s home that the brothers never liked. The auctioneer valued
them at $500 each.
The brothers left
those possessions with the auctioneer. The brothers totally lost track of the
auction and trusted the auction house to just mail them a check. The auction was
held on Yom Kippur. It produced a few thousand dollars, including one of the
paintings, which sold at the estimated value of $500. When the second painting
came up for bidding, it opened at $500 and immediately went to $1,000. A
bidding war developed among three bidders. It went to $10,000 and then to
$100,000. Eventually, the hammer went down at $850,000. It was a picture of a
man lying on a chaise chair being revived with smelling salts. The Japanese
bidder who purchased the painting flipped it the next day for over three-and-a-half
million dollars. The auctioneer was in shock and could not believe his
miscalculation in assessing a European painting, a Rembrandt. It was part of a
three-painting portfolio of the “senses.” Someone owned two, and this was the
missing piece. I believe the three bidders only saw the painting online and
took a risk in assuming they had found the original piece and not a copy or
phony.
The stunned
auctioneer tried to call the brothers on Yom Kippur, but the phone was not
answered, of course, as they attended their synagogue on that very holy day. A
day later the auctioneer reached the brothers with the incredible news. They
must have davened well! Somehow their grandfather purchased this painting
before they were born; how it got to these shores no one knows.
The moral of the
story: You never know what is in your attic. Take it out, display it, and enjoy
it – or sell it. Above all, don’t put it into storage!
Eli W. Schlossberg is a long time Where What When columnist and author of My Shtetl
Baltimore.
