Month: July 2019

Self-storage has a lot of benefits, such as freeing up storage space in your home or providing a safe space to store your belongings when going away, but low rental prices do come with some potential risks – including making it extremely easy to end up hoarding things instead of throwing them out.

Storage can be extremely helpful if you’re in need of a safe, secure place to keep your belongings. Your reason for needing storage could be a number of different things, such as:

Storage Units

So, there are a lot of legitimate uses for using a storage unit. However, with many facilities charging for the use of a storage unit based on square metres, it pays to use a smaller unit if you can.

As this article recently highlighted, hoarding can get out of control when it comes to storage units, and that translates to high costs for storing items you don’t even need.

How to avoid hoarding things you don’t need in storage

1) Go through your belongings before packing them into storage

Before you put your items into storage, go through them and decide what you really need. It’s a good idea to think about why you’re putting them into storage and decide whether you’ll actually need them once your contract is over.

For example, if you have furniture and gadgets when renovating or moving house you’ll probably need these, however, if it’s just clutter from your home it may be a good idea to declutter now and save yourself money on the size of the storage unit you need to rent.

2) Keep an inventory

Another good way to avoid hoarding is by keeping an inventory of all the items you are putting into storage. Keeping an invoice inventory allows you to keep track of the items you have stored currently – and the items you’re adding to it.

In the future, when you come to either take your items out of storage or to add more to them, you can have a look at your inventory and decide what you no longer need, or simply replace items rather than having to scale up and pay more for a larger storage unit. 

This is particularly beneficial to businesses who are looking to use storage to store stock or archive old paperwork as an inventory can be extremely useful for business purposes as well as for ensuring you’re not holding on to any unnecessary items.

Read next: how to save money on packing materials for self-storage

3) Reanalyze what you have stored

Finally, it’s a good idea to make sure your re-analysing the items you having storage every couple of months it can be easy to forget what you having storage and realise that you no longer than actually need it full stop

If you’re a student, for example, you’ll probably have forgotten half of the things you already having storage so coming back to your unit and having a look at what you’ve got could easily save you money by deciding that you:
a) either no longer need a storage unit or
b) can declutter your items and pay less for a smaller storage unit full stop

However big your storage unit is, taking out a storage insurance policy to protect your belongings is always a good idea.

Often, this is a mandatory requirement for most storage facilities in order to ensure that your belongings are protected in the event of a fire, flooding, vandalism, theft, damage or other unexpected incidents.

We believe in offering competitive storage insurance for all of our customers to suit all budgets. Get a quote for your storage insurance policy today.

Charities Call For Stricter Regulations On Mobility Scooters

Mobility scooters were back in the headlines this month with a number of influential road charities calling for tighter restrictions on mobility scooter users, particularly scooters used on pavements.

IAM Roadsmart, a leaving driver awareness group in the UK, suggests that those caught committing offences such as driving a mobility scooter under the influence of drugs or alcohol repeat times should face having their scooter seized.

Under current legislation, mobility scooters require no licence in order to be driven – which means anyone caught committing an offence can continue driving their scooter and are charged with penalties (fines) instead.

Rebecca Ashton, from IAM Roadsmart, said: “Anyone driving a mechanically-propelled vehicle must be in full control of it, they need to be fully capable of controlling the machine to avoid causing danger to themselves or other road users.”

What’s more, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has added that “the number of accidents and casualties involving mobility scooters is increasing.

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It would help if it was made clear that road traffic laws governing careless and dangerous driving all apply to mobility scooter users.”

The calls for stricter regulations come after a man was punished with a driving ban for three years after being found driving his mobility scooter under the influence of alcohol – a ban put in place even though the man concerned doesn’t use a car.

Additionally, incidents with mobility scooters appear to be increasing each year, with more accidents involving scooters than ever before both with cars and pedestrians.

 

Don’t get caught out when using your mobility scooter – make sure you know the correct rules and regulations you should be following to stay safe at all times.

 

 

A recent study published by NHS Digital has revealed that 60.6% of carers reported feeling stressed in 2018-19, a 2% increase from the results in 2016-17.

Read our latest Carers and Mental Health Survey 2022 results.

The survey, compiled from a pool of 50,800 adult carers, sheds some light on the difficulties carers are facing in our current climate, with many carers unable to find the emotional, financial, and hands-on support that they need.

On top of an increase in the number of carers that report feeling stressed, carers feeling depressed also increased from 43.4% to 45.1%, while the percentage of carers reporting feeling tired and having disturbed sleep also rose.

Caring Hours

Over three-quarters of the carers surveyed reported spending more than 20 hours per week as a carer, with 38.7% spending more than 100 hours per week in their role as a carer.

Financial Difficulties

Potentially a contributing factor to the increased stress, repression, and isolation carers are experiencing is a correlation with financial difficulties. 10.6% of respondents reported that caring had caused them financial difficulty in the past 12 months, an increase from 9.6% of respondents in 2016-17.

The report also showed that:

  • Over 67% of carers were female
  • The majority of carers are in the 55-64 age bracket, with 18-24 year olds accounting for the smallest age bracket
  • 65.4% of carers had been carers for five years or more, with 23.5% being carers for 20 or more years
  • 38.6% of carers were extremely or very satisfied with the support or services they received, compared to 7.2% who were extremely or very dissatisfied

Results were first shown by NHS Digital.

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