You have a basement? Then the attic as storage space is completely useless.
Exactly, we don't want to use it at all for now.
We just want a retractable ladder in case there is ever an animal or something up there.. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have any way to get up. If there ever were problems with the roof, it could be worth its weight in gold.
And of course, additional storage space would still become available for "relatively" little money. But precisely for this reason, we want to spend as little money as possible on this topic!
A retractable staircase can be done. As storage, you really don't need it with a basement! With my first house, I made the mistake of storing things upstairs. Super annoying and I was upstairs as rarely as possible. In the current house, I simply rolled out the insulation mats crisscross upstairs. The basement is COMPLETELY sufficient to store everything necessary.