The Big Ride

One of the truisms of life is that you have to pay to be somewhere. Regardless of all other factors in life you need a place to be and if you don’t bring all your stuff with you, you need a place for your stuff. Though we have freedom of speech and freedom of expression and to an extent freedom to be where we want, to be somewhere is not free. Aside from public libraries and parks, you have to pay somebody to be somewhere. You can sit at a coffee shop or restaurant for awhile but you have to pay to be there by ordering something. You can sit in the library but it will eventually close. When it is time to sleep, you definitely have to pay for the privilege; sleeping is not a right, you do not have the freedom to sleep anywhere. The plight of the homeless, who have to find a combination of libraries and other public spaces by day, and hopefully a spot in an underfunded, overcrowded, only slightly better than the streets, shelter by night, is truly tragic. But that is how our society is structured—you need money to be somewhere.

We will be traveling this summer, which means a hotel room each night and somewhere to be during the day, both of which cost money. But first, because the furniture and most of the books and clothes aren’t coming with us, we need a place for them. That also costs money. So we looked at storage options.

The first thought was a storage facility where they rent you a room or garage. A storage area big enough to take the belongings of our two bedroom apartment comes to between $240 to $280 a month. That is about ten percent of our rent. The problem with the storage rooms is that you have to get your stuff there, which means hiring a truck and some moving people to load and then unload the truck (we’ve moved ourselves enough in life, it is time to hire movers). Then there’s the truck and movers again when it is time to take the stuff out of storage and into the new apartment. So that adds at least $200 each side of the storage move so we figure for three months this option costs at least $1,120.

The second option we considered were the “pod” system. Companies like PODS and 1800Packrat deliver a portable metal container, a small semi-tractor trailer either 12, 16, or 20 feet long, and you load and they haul it off to their storage place. This eliminates the need to rent a truck, and the unloading at the storage place, thus saving about $200 roundtrip. The rent for storing the metal “pod” is about the same as a storage room so this option is about $900.

Even better though are the “mini-pods.” These are smaller portable containers from companies like Door-to-Door and Smart Box. These are wooden crates that measure five feet wide, eight feet deep, and seven feet tall. Because of their size and construction they are cheaper than the large and heavy metal pods, especially storage costs as low as $49 a month per pod. They also have the advantage of being delivered and picked up, thus no need to rent a truck, and no unloading at the storage place. Since they are smaller, we would need two to hold our stuff, but even so three months of storage comes to about $800.

Mentioned:

http://www.pods.com

http://www.1800packrat.com

http://www.doortodoor.com

http://www.smartboxusa.com