Quiet morning here at work so I've a moment to post, and catch up on reading other's posts. 
Last week we had the truck that picks up charitable donations come around our neighborhood. DD purged a large, black trash bag worth of clothes that didn't fit anymore and set them out on the sidewalk. Such an easy way to donate stuff; the convienince of living in town.
Does anyone use this type of donation as a tax write-off? How do you figure a value?
And we are slowly gathering things together for a yardsale come summertime. I also need to get back to posting a few nice items to Craigslist.
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Saturday my inlaws were in the area for a spring motorcycle ride with a group they belong to. After the ride there was a large group dinner at the Hilton. $40 per plate! I had told DH we wouldn't eat with them for that price. We'd visit with them, maybe do breakfast the next day, but no way do $40/person. Not when that would get us a gourmet meal and not just cookie-cutter banquet food. Anyhow, the inlaws wanted us to have dinner, so they bought. Which was fine I guess. The food was better than average fare for that sort of thing, but we all could have eaten much, much better for the price. Oh well.. 
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The Giants won on Saturday night. $2 to the EF. Total is $3917.
Donation. Dinner with the Inlaws.
April 18th, 2011 at 08:55 pm
April 18th, 2011 at 09:10 pm 1303161007
I feel similarly, especially when my inlaws come into town and want to eat at Portillos and insist on buying everyone beef sandwiches whether they want them or not. My MIL is somehow offended that my youngest three are mostly content with hotdogs! It was nice of them though!
April 18th, 2011 at 09:12 pm 1303161165
I simply write a list of everything I donate. Once I donate the items, I write the charity and date at the top of the page. I staple the receipt to it. At tax time, I go through and assign a value to each item or group of items. Add them up and enter them into the tax program. This year our donations for household goods was valued at just over $1200. Since we were in the 15% tax bracket, those donations saved us $180 in taxes!
April 18th, 2011 at 10:11 pm 1303164699
I literally figure about 5% of retail - if that. There are resources online to figure, as ccfree mentioned. IRS recommends you take pictures of donations as proof, these days.
April 19th, 2011 at 12:18 am 1303172302