July 9, 2008 - Pragmatic Compendium

Garage Sales don’t work for me. While I myself shop garage sales, I just do not have the patience to have one myself. Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is of the same opinion. Besides, where I live, city workers routinely drive around on Friday and Saturday mornings confiscating all the garage sale signs. Advertising in the paper and on craigslist helps, but the lack of impulse shoppers is a serious hit to the bottom line when it comes to garage sales.

For us, it works out better to give our stuff away. (It feels good too!) Since we itemize our taxes, we itemize our charitable contributions.

I recently discovered I was UNDERESTIMATING the value of the items we give away. I stumbled upon a handy little program called “It’s Deductible” on the http://www.intuit.com website. (It’s Deductible is included with the purchase of Turbo Tax, but it is FREE online!)

It is GREAT! It values items based on common ebay pricing. Check out these screen shots (click to see larger images). I select a category, in this case, I picked “Books, Movies & Music.”

Then, I click the exact item I’m giving away, in this case, I selected “Books.”

The choices are clear and the prices are pretty good. For example, if you give away a “high quality” hardback book, the estimated value is $4.00. It’s Deductible automatically calculates your tax savings according to the tax bracket you entered in. When you are finished, you can view and print summaries in PDF. Really a wonderful tool!

And did I mention? It’s FREE!

Find more great tips at Works for Me Wednesday hosted by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer!

We had a hankering for mangos a few weeks back and, after trying to cut up the first one, I quickly googled the instructions. (There are no photos of the first attempt, it was a mess.)

First, I cut off the bottom of the mango so it would stand up all by itself.

A mango has a large, oblong pit and the goal was to get as much fruit off of it as possible. I cut off the two sides, or “cheeks” as close to the pit as I could. (Mangos aren’t egg shaped. If you turn them, you can see two opposing sides are somewhat flat.) Then I trimmed the edges. If you look closely, the white you see is the pit.

Because I wanted diced mango, I cut a checkerboard pattern in the flesh (but not all the way through the skin) and pushed the skin inside out so it looked kind of like a little mango hedgehog. I forgot to take a photo of my own little hedgehog, so here’s one from Google images:

Finally, I sliced the cubes off the skin, put them in a container (square or rectangle of course) and popped them in the fridge to chill. (You may need to check on your container later. It may be empty.) Check out the youtube video for an example and a few other options: