How to value clothes??

[sscott4775]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone knows how picky trustees can be when it comes to the value of clothes?

I don't have anything other than personal property, and everything that I own, which truthfully, isn't much at all hehe, is exempt. The clothing value thing was bugging me, though. I've heard that you use a garage-sale value for the items, but I've never been good at judiciously setting prices...I always either go to high, or too low and I'm afraid that if I make the wrong call on the price, it could set off a red flag.
It's not that the clothes I own are top-of-the-line, designer items or anything, they're just regular clothes.

Anyway, I appreciate any input! Thanks everyone!

[ccsjoe]

scott, according to my attorney, if you were to throw all your clothes into big black trash bags, calculate how many bags you'd fill and multiply by $50 per bag at best. Ours came out to 5 bags, so $250. We are a family of 3.

And stop stressing, nobody is going to red flag your values unless you go way over or under the line. Nobody wants your (or ours) used clothes. Our very nice dining room table set is listed at $85, including all 6 chairs. Think garage sale prices. You'll be ok.

[MSbklawyer]

I've never had a trustee question the value of clothing. Houses? Yes. Cars? Lots of times. But clothes? Not once. Unless you have furs or one of Elvis' rhinestone jackets in your wardrobe, used clothes ain't worth squat. If you really want to be precise, go to a goodwill store and see what they're selling used clothes for that are similar to yours.

Wierd facts always seem to stick in my mind, so I seem to remember from somewhere that Madonna once donated the bra that she had worn while filming one of those slutty music videos that she's always putting out to a charity auction and the damn thing brought in excess of $10K!! I also remember seeing a story about how, in Japan, there are vending machines where school girls sell their used undies for $50 pair.

http://www.snopes.com/risque/kinky/panties.asp

So, to put it all in a nutshell for you, if you are really Madonna just being sneaky and posting here as sscott4775, or if you are a Japanese school aged girl, you might need to put a bit of thought into what the trustee could fetch for your used clothes. But if you're like 99.999999% of the people in the U.S., just put down a value of $100 and be done with it.

[sscott4775]

Thank you both for your responses. This clarifies a lot and makes me a feel a lot better about the situation.

[AngelinaCat]

Goodwill in our area can be a little high. Go to several yard sales in your community and get a feel for what clothes are going for. A lot of times you will be only paying a quarter or two for a particular piece of clothing.