Buying America: Grocery Day Part 2

If nothing else - if buying American does nothing for our country and doesn't make an impact on the global economy at all - trying to buy only products made only in the U.S.A really stops you from buying whatever you want whenever you want and therefore is perhaps contributing to my vacation fund.  Actually scratch that and replace with "bill paying fund". 

For example, I'm scared to go shopping for clothes, so I'm just not doing it.  Instead of actively going out and looking for American-made clothing, I'm just not buying any - which is really beside the point.  But I've spent a decent amount of time on the internet searching for American-made clothing and I'm having a difficult time.  Lucky Brand Jeans MIGHT be assembled in America.  I'm not totally sure.  It's hard to tell - this really is a difficult task and I have to admit I'm experiencing a fair amount of frustration at how little is actually made in America.  And Lucky Brand is expensive, much more expensive than Target-brand cheapies that I normally shop for.   And because of how arduous this is, I made executive decisions on two occasions yesterday at the grocery store.   Here is the story of my epic failure at my self-imposed challenge:

1.) Adam wants a shrimp peeler thing-a-ma-jig that you can stick in your shrimp and remove all the poopy veins.  UH.... YES PLEASE!  He doesn't need to convince me any on that purchase.  But there are none made in America apparently.  Even though it's literally just a curved piece of plastic.  The one at HEB was made in China (ouch) but cost only $2.  I told him just to get it.    FAIL.

2.) Adam wants a little brush and dustpan for the garage.  There were four, count them FOUR, options at HEB - none of which were made in America.  I approved his purchase of the one made in Mexico (slightly less ouch).  I mean, if you're going to give me four options, none of which are made in America, what am I supposed to do?  Probably I could have held out and looked harder, and in this aspect I am totally in the wrong.  I feel guilty and like a failure and just generally depressed about my goal.

Small consolations:

1.) Used the Purex for the first time yesterday and my clothes are still intact.  Glad to see this means I can continue to use Purex.

2.) Bought some candles which are handmade in America.

3.) The rest of the food items we bought at the store were made in America.

4.)  Had to buy a new bottom rack for dishwasher - was excited to see it was made in America.

5.) Went to Home Depot to purchase a bunch of electrical items for some new project Adam is doing in the garage.  Of the ten items we got, seven were made in America and three were made in China.  The problem was he couldn't do his project without those three so I had to approve them.  Again I feel the crushing weight of failure bearing down upon me and there's nothing I can do about it.  The only consolation is that we bought more that was made in America than wasn't, and we actively made choices in those aspects to purchase the American-made version over the non-American-made version.   There's some stuff you just can't get. 

AMERICA - MANUFACTURE MORE STUFF!!!