The Parallel Makeup Bag

Without a doubt, at $78 for the small size, the Parallel Cosmetic Bag is expensive! Still we can admire how revolutionary it is. A traveler can organize her makeup essentials upright and visible instead of packing it in one big clump of brushes, powder, blush, and lipsticks. No riffling through the bag to find an item.

We are asked to pay for the attractive, sophisticated design that turns chaos into the clever organization of all our beauty tools, the patent-pending folding technology, its intuitive compartments and compactness, and the ease it gives us of grabbing our makeup on the road.

Nevertheless, we know it's only a matter of time before other retailers create a knock-off of the Parallel Travel bag and we could choose to wait and see if they're close enough for less moola.

A Savvy Shopper has choices. Take the concept: (1) Pay the piper if it fills an immediate need; (2) wait for a sale; (3) search for a close-enough clone; or (4)  try making one yourself if you can sew.

Scoring a steal or deal for the original Parallel Cosmetic Bag would be fabulous, but finding a budget-friendly compromise is super satisfying too.

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When You Don't Want To Waste Wine - Single Glass Solutions

This morning I watched a segment on the Today Show about an entrepreneur who shares a dilemma I often have. Occasionally I make a dinner that requires a glass of wine, and I don't want to open and waste a whole bottle of wine to drink a glass of wine so I go without. This entrepreneur produces single-serving wine -- 5 fluid ounces bottled, and all the morning news correspondents acted like she just reinvented the wheel. I thought nobody is saying what this brand's single glass of wine costs. I decided not to mention the brand because a Google search revealed that sure enough, at $6.99 - $8.99 a glass, consumers are paying the same price for a glass of wine as they would for a bottle of good Spanish, South American, or California wine so in reality what problem is being solved? Like bottled water, it's also creating more packaging waste for the environment, no?

Photo: iStock

THE SAVVY SHOPPER came up with a simple more cost-effective solution a few years back: 1) Open the bottle, 2) enjoy your single glass with dinner (or two if you're cooking for two), 3) re-cork the wine, and 4) sometime later on, turn the remainder of the bottle of wine into sangria. Use my recipe or yours! If the wine has gone flat the sangria will still taste delicious.

Even if you didn't finish the wine as sangria, you could use the leftover wine to make gravy for beef/chicken dinners.

Pass on buying one glass of wine at a time unless your company is paying for a mini bar in a hotel or the cost is less and not the same as an entire bottle of wine.

For frequent wine drinkers, there is an innovative gadget on the market, the Coravin, that (1) pierces the cork of a wine bottle, adding argon gas, (2) lets you pour a glass, (3) you remove the Caravin to reseal the cork, and (4) the rest of the wine stays good to drink months later as no air can get into the bottle to flatten the flavor of the wine. The Coravin is an expensive device and therefore an investment that only pays off if you drink enough wine. Unfortunately, the solution for drinking in moderation and not wasting wine doesn't come cheap. This leaves the door open for another clever entrepreneur to start cracking on a truer cost-efficient and eco-friendly solution! We'll wait ...

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