Too Much Stuff!

Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or worse, stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being. – Matthew 6:19-21 (Message) In 2016, Americans spent nearly $33 billion on self-storage. In 2015, less than ten percent of U.S. households rented a self-storage unit. So far in 2017, construction on new self-storage units has topped $240 million per month.* The majority is in use for one reason: We have more stuff than we know what to do with. Here are three ways from Frugal Rules** to tell when you have too much stuff: 1. YOU CAN’T PARK A SINGLE CAR IN YOUR TWO-CAR GARAGE So many people today think of a two-car garage as a “must have” on their list of wants for a new home, but how often do you see a two-car garage with two cars actually in it? It’s more common to see stuff piled in it as a storage area instead of a place to actually house cars. If you have so much stuff that you park two of your big investments outside just so you can store your yearbooks/outgrown baby clothes/grandma’s china in your garage, you probably have too much stuff. 2. YOU PAY A MONTHLY FEE FOR A STORAGE BUILDING… AND YOU’RE NOT MOVING There are some very valid reasons to pay a monthly fee for a temporary storage unit, but the key word here is “temporary.” I understand that there are sometimes reasons for paying for storage units, but let’s face it, most of them are not used for temporary purposes. There’s a reason storage buildings are such big business. People are attached to their stuff, so much so that they are willing to shell out $50, $100, or $200 per month for a storage unit (which turns into $600, $1200, and $2400 per year) just to store it all. Yikes! 3. YOU ARE CONSTANTLY REORGANIZING AND BUYING ORGANIZATION TOOLS Maybe you have a junk drawer that you can’t actually close or your clothes can’t even hang in your closet because they’re so jammed in there. So you spend a weekend going to the store to purchase some new, pretty boxes to store other things in. I do love organizing from time to time, but buying more things to organize your other things doesn’t fix the problem; it only adds to your clutter and costs you money in the process. Jesus and his early followers traveled lightly. We might consider doing the same. After all, we are promised, “This world, is not our home” (Hebrews 13:14). We’re also reminded that there are no U-Hauls in heaven either. Maranatha! * https://www.sparefoot.com/self-storage/news/1432-self-storage-industry-statistics/