I held this same belief for many years, but now find myself the renter of an interminable storage unit. Its contents are almost entirely:

* Boxes for various bits of electronic gear that I may sell at some point and will net a better value if I have the original packaging. This has proven worthwhile in the past as I explored my synth hobby.

* Halloween and Christmas decorations, because my wife decorates for the holidays like an exuberant goth Clark Griswald.

The unit is 90% the latter.

I've thought long and hard that we shouldn't own more than we can hold on our property. I've even thought that maybe we should move into a bigger house with more storage in order to achieve that goal.

But then I realized that a storage unit is essentially a much cheaper version of that second sentence. Here in Seattle, uprgading to an even slightly bigger house would be an enormous increase in our mortgage, would incur a large costly move, and risks having to change schools for my kids.

Compared to that, a storage unit is a much cheaper, easier option.

I would still prefer to not have it, and I'm enough of a minimalist that I could get by fine without it. But marriage is a partnership and those decorations bring her (and the rest of our neighborhood) a lot of joy, so here we are.