Save Big: Spend Smart on Small Appliances -- Savings Experiment

If a Golden Age of kitchen appliances exists, it would have to be the 1920s, when the domestic Big Three leaped from the drawing board to the countertop. The creativity started in 1922, when Stephen Polawski invented the blender; he used his spinning blade contraption to make fountain drinks. Then came 1927, when architect John W. Hammes built his wife the world's first kitchen garbage disposal. (Either he was the World's most sensitive hubby, or just got tired of taking out the trash.) And finally, Ivar Jepson gave us the glorious Sunbeam Mixmaster, patented between 1928 and 1929.

Yet for all that invention, no one has crafted a device that can help homemakers make the best choices in outfitting the kitchen. In fact, you might well say "There's an app for that" -- as in appliance -- with all the gadgets you can stuff into your cooking and dining space. Noodle makers, apple peelers, juice grinders, espresso makers: How about an appliance that bends over and cleans up the spaghetti blob your kid just plopped under the table?

We may not have a patent on that device -- but at the Savings Experiment, we do promise some timely research and findings to help you make that kitchen efficient, modern and thrifty. Now there's a nice Big Three if we ever saw one.