Garage Sale Calculator

What it is

Garage Sale Calculator is a small web app built for a real, recurring problem: how do you fairly split the proceeds of a multi-host garage sale when everyone brought their own stuff to sell? Spreadsheets work in theory and fall apart in practice (no signal in the garage, sticky fingers on the laptop, ad-hoc discounts on whatever Karen is buying).

This app lets each transaction tag items by their host, apply a discount if needed, and roll up totals automatically. Because it’s a PWA, you can install it to a phone home screen and run the whole sale without an internet connection — Firestore’s offline persistence syncs everything back up when you’re done.

Why it matters

It’s a small, opinionated tool that does one job well. No accounts, no clutter, no monetization — just a calculator for a once-or-twice-a-year problem that always seems to come up.

Tech notes

• Frontend: React 18 + Vite for a fast dev loop. Tailwind for styling. React Router for the few internal routes.
• Persistence: Firebase (anonymous auth + Firestore with offline persistence) so the app keeps working even when the venue WiFi doesn’t.
• PWA: vite-plugin-pwa to make it installable on phones for use in the field.
• Icons: lucide-react.