Sunday, October 19, 2008

Where do I find Made in USA products?

Now that the whole country is starting to grasp the seriousness of shipping all of our work and money overseas, many of us are renewing our efforts to try to buy 'Made in the USA' products. The issue is that they are rather hard to find. I went into Nordstroms a few months ago and asked if any of the gloves or belts were Made in USA and they actually laughed out loud at me. It was sad.

Nonetheless, I have been working hard to buy Made in USA. It is hard. Here is what I've found, in no particular order.

Where and how to find merchandise online:
  • MadeinUSAforever.com.
    I've had good luck with this site; I've ordered several baby items and been pleased with them. The Founder, Todd Lipscomb, is quite dedicated to supporting Made in USA products and he's doing a lot to bring new products to the site every month.
  • Still Made in the USA. I've had good luck with this site, too. I've found several companies that I've actually ordered from, from this site.
  • MadeinUSA.org and MadeinUSA.com. I haven't had much luck with either of these sites, but they do exist, and I'm sure that someone will find them useful.
A bunch of retailers carry some Made in USA items; you just need to look for them. Here are some recent ones that I've stumbled across and bought from:
  • Whole Foods actually has a small section of clothes and baby items, many of which are Made in USA. They also try to buy a lot of local produce, which is of course great.
  • Crate & Barrel actually has a decent amount of Made in USA items; you can do a site search for "USA" and find them
  • I was at Babies-R-Us today and was actually able to find several Made in USA items. Some bubbles, some socks (Miniwear brand, made by Gerber for Babies-R-Us, $4.99 for a 6-pack), and some bibs (Bumkins brand, $5.99 for a single bib).

Some of my favorite USA vendors:

My next big dilemma will be buying a new car.

My 1994 Nissan Sentra won't last forever. I have been very happy with it, but I'd like to buy a car from a United States manufacturer. But when I track down all the features I want, it always seems to be a foreign car. Also, I keep hearing things like "It's better to buy a Honda. They are made in US plants, now." and "Saturns are actually using Honda engines, now." I am hoping that by the time my car dies, I will have had sufficient time to research what exactly is going on in this industry, and that a US car will up to spec.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Accuracy in Baby Food Naming

I'd like to ask for a little more accuracy in Baby Food naming, please.

Let's look at one example:
Earth's Best Organic's Vegetable Turkey Dinner.

What do you think might be in this?
Well, turkey and vegetables was the guess of my mother-in-law when she bought it. And there is in fact some in there. BUT the #1 ingredient is -- wait for it -- Apples. This is great for most babies, but not for mine that gets sick after eating apples. While I do realize it is my responsibility to read all the ingredients, it would be nice if the names were a little more accurate. For example, I'd personally call this one Apple Dinner with Turkey, Vegetables, and Barley. This seems a great deal more precise, to me.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

CD: That's compact disc, right?

My husband and I are very fiscally conservative. Our parents were told about the Great Depression in Great Detail by their parents and have passed this data down to us, as well. So, all of this financial turmoil has prompted some action.

Through a series of mergers, it has ended up that we have most of our money with Bank of America. So, we decided to diversify and put some in a very old, small, conservative Bank with a long, solid history. My own family has banked with Woodsboro Bank for many years (since 1899, to be exact), but that is a little far from my husband and I, currently. So, we looked around for another bank with similar characteristics.

Burke & Herbert has been in Alexandria since 1852. It's the oldest bank in Virginia. Whoo-hoo. Sign us up. We decided to try one of their Promotional CDs.

So, we walked into the bank today. Here is a transcript of our conversation with the first teller. It's so priceless that it has to be shared. And before you ask, the teller was rather young. Just out of college would be my guess.

Teller: How may I help you today?

Me: I'd like to open a Certificate of Deposit, please

Teller: [Pause] I'm sorry, what are you looking to do?

Me: I'd like to open a Certificate of Deposit

Teller: [Looking at me like I've landed from Mars] I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you mean.

Me: [Looking at teller like he's landed from Mars] A CD ... I want to open a CD.

Teller: [Clearly relieved to discover I was not a Martian, after all] Oh, Ok. To the side, please.


Does anyone else think it odd that a Bank Teller has never heard the term "Certificate of Deposit"? Anyways, we got a good laugh out of it. We'll be at a holiday party at the end of the year with the bank's president. I bet he'll find this story hysterical, too. Maybe.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Chronicles of the New Giant: My Kingdom for a Bag

My friend Sue had me rolling on the floor with the tale of her quest for one of the new lime-green Giant reusable bags...
  • Three weeks ago, she went to her local Giant, in Maryland, and wanted to buy some of the new bags. She really likes the new lime green. But they didn't have any in stock. They only had the old blue ones, for .99-cents each.
  • She went back a week later -- 2 weeks ago -- and they still didn't have any of the new bags. But they had twice as many blue bags, and now they were only .79-cents. She asked one of the managers about the new bags, and he said that the bags should be in, soon
  • She went back last week and STILL no green bags. And there were triple the number of the old blue bags, now for only .49-cents each. She talked to a manager, again, who this time told her that they had to sell all the old bags before they were allowed to have any new ones.
  • She then drove a few miles down the road to a different Giant. This Giant had both the old blue and the new green bags. All for .99-cents each. She bought some of the green bags.
  • She is now planning to visit her local Giant each week. Her theory is that if they keep dropping the old blue bags by .20-.30 cents each week, they'll be free in approx 2-3 weeks.
This story got me all fired up; I just couldn't wait to go to a Giant in Virginia to check out their bags. So I went to the Alexandria, VA, Giant at my lunch hour.

Bags EVERYWHERE. Endcaps, registers, anywhere they could fit them. Old blue bags, new green bags, AND the cool April 2008 'earth day' bags that I hadn't seen anywhere else since Earth day. I immediately grabbed one of the earth day bags (one of my favorites) as I took note that they were all still .99-cents.

I don't know what is going on in that store up in Maryland. It's like that manager drew the short, blue straw at a regional meeting, or something.