Sara Bongiorni and her family boycotted all “made in China” products for a year. And it was tough. Sara wrote about her family’s experience in a newly relseased book, “A Year Without ‘Made in China.”‘

She muses that buying shoes and toys and household fix-it items was a challenge when not buying things made in China. Sara says there was no agenda to this project, other than to make other Americans aware of how much international trade influences our lives.

Sara is a business writer in Baton Rouge, and she has written about international trade for 10 years. Yet during that time she failed to consider how international trade numbers really impacted her life. Until she changed her personal buying habits, that is.

It is reported that 15% of goods imported into the U.S. are from China. The draw to Chinese imports is the low prices. Read the article on Yahoo for a little taste of the shopping challenges Sara’s family encountered.