Digital Storage Costs Me Hundreds of Dollars. Here's How a Photo Purge Could Save You Money

I am a digital hoarder. I hate deleting anything. That serves me well when I need to find an email my aunt sent me a decade ago or come up with photos for someone's birthday book. But it's getting expensive, it's bad for the environment, and my laptop, tablet, and phone are all groaning under the stress of all those extra files.

The cost of being a digital hoarder

The idea of accidentally deleting something I might need fills me with abject horror. I keep everything, from emails to screenshots of payments. Everything is safely tucked away, just in case.

That said, several of my friends (and likely some readers) are filled with the same level of horror at the almost 100,000 emails in my inbox and the very idea that I'd opt to pay more rather than send some things to the digital trash can. And pay more I do:

• I pay Google $1.99 a month on my personal account. But I've almost maxed out the 100GB I get for that and I'm considering paying for more.
• I pay $1.99 a month for Google storage on my business account.
• I pay a further $2.99 a month to Apple for iCloud storage.

Each individual payment seems relatively small -- it wouldn't even buy me a latte in Starbucks. But if you add in the money I've spent on external hard drives and USBs, it comes to well over $100 a year. Frankly, that's money I'd rather have in my savings account. And that's before you factor in the $600 I'm about to spend on a new smartphone, purely because my current one has run out of memory.

Since I'm already hanging my dirty digital laundry out in public, I'll let you in on another secret -- and a hidden cost of all that electronic clutter. It slows my computer down and makes me less productive. On top of all those files, I currently have 20 different open windows, each with multiple tabs. Ultimately, there are better ways to manage both my browsing and my storage, which could save me time and money.

How to do a digital declutter -- and save money

Sadly, holding on to so many files and emails hurts more than my bank balance. If I were to be the victim of cyber crime, criminals would have access to much more personal information simply because of the volume of data I store. Plus, it may be called cloud storage, but the data centers that store all those files, pictures, and videos are very real. They consume huge amounts of electricity and have massive digital footprints.

Here are three steps to decluttering your digital life.

1. Understand why you're holding on to those files

According to an article in Oxford Academic, there are four types of digital hoarders. Understanding which category you fall into can help when it comes to hitting the delete button. Some people are accidental hoarders -- they didn't intentionally keep all those files, they just built up over time, perhaps because they weren't sure how to manage them. Others are anxious hoarders, saving information haphazardly just in case they might need it in the future. In contrast, organized hoarders have a system and store things through carefully curated filing systems. Finally, compliance hoarders keep data because they need to for work.

2. Break it down into achievable steps

Start by taking a look at what you actually have, where it is stored, and what it is costing you. You may be surprised at how much data is duplicated, and how many easy wins there are.

• Files: It is easier to find and track files if they have names and are sorted into folders. Take time to organize your files, just as you would with a physical filing cabinet. Then you can decide what folders to back up on the cloud, what to leave on your computer, and what to move to an external hard drive.
• Photos and videos: I used an app to clean up my photo storage. Not only did it weed out all the duplicated pictures and videos, it also automatically found similar images and kept the best one. I signed up for a free subscription and uninstalled the app after my purge. It's also worth naming the photos you keep and putting them into folders.
• Emails: There are a few approaches here, including simply deleting all your unread messages. Try sorting by sender and bulk delete anything from companies trying to sell you something. Depending on what mail tool you use, you might be able to sort by file size and delete all the really big ones.

You don't have to do it all at once, but try to set aside half an hour a week to do your digital decluttering. I have made a plan of what I'll tackle each week and blocked out the time in my diary. Setting clear steps means I'm less likely to procrastinate or push the job to another day.

3. Change your habits

Once you've got your digital storage under control, the next trick is to keep it manageable. Try unsubscribing from newsletters you rarely read and setting up different email accounts for specific purposes. Use one 'spam' address for any marketing or other sign up that's likely to fill your inbox. If you don't want to do it as you go along, plan a time each month when you'll sort through new data.

The cost of digital storage is deceptive. Not only can a couple of dollars each month add up, it also doesn't include the cost of, say, a new phone or storage devices. Nor does it account for the productivity cost of drowning in data. Purging my photos and emails is reducing both my stress and costs, which -- much as I hate to admit it -- can only be a good thing.