Made in America

One thing that Papa and I have decided on is that we'd like to be more conscious of how we spend our money. Everyone knows that the economy is terrible, but we're doing our small part by buying goods that are made in America. Over the last year I have been working very hard to be sure that all of our major purchases were products that were made in America as well as looking for everyday things that we buy and switching them for products produced in America. This has turned out to be harder than I thought, I have yet to find cloth napkins that are American made, so for now we've yet to switch to cloth napkins. I contemplated sewing some, but I hate doing the tiny stitches that napkins require, but I digress! I know that one family buying domestic products won't make a huge impact, but it does help in a small way.

Baby

Do you know how many kinds pacifiers are made here in the US? Two. Luckily Baby loves Dr. Browns pacifiers and they meet the criteria of a.) made in America and b.) sold at a local shop. I thought diapering was going to be a challenge, but it turns out there are a lot of great cloth diaper options! BumGenius, Thirsties, and BottomBumpers, just to name a few are all cloth diapers companies that are produced here in the United States. We're lucky enough to have a cloth diaper shop that isn't terribly far from us that we can occasionally visit when we go into the city and see about getting a new cover or two since the prints are so cute! We have actually only just begun to buy Baby clothes as we were fortunate enough to be gifted lots of new and hand me down clothes from family. Domestically produced clothes are more expensive than their Asian counterparts but they seem to be a lot sturdier, so they should last through multiple children so long as they are properly laundered. We don't have a ton of extra money to spend on clothes, so I tend to shop sales and second hand, if you've got time to wait you can find some really great deals. Right now Baby is wearing 6 month clothes, but I just got 3 great 12 month outfits for 75% off.