Something we budget babes know well is that you shouldn't pay a fortune for fashion fads. Case in point: The ombre tank. Sure, it's hot this season, but what about 3 months from now? What if we're all dip-dyed-out and on to bigger, better things? If we buy into this trend with the chic tank on the right from New York & Co., for just $32.95, we will have zero regrets. If, on the other hand, we splurge on Theory's ombre tank on the left for $180.00, we will be ashamed of ourselves. Be savvy and don't say we didn't warn you.

Luxe on left: Theory Mahira Ombre Top at Shopbop.com, $180
Less on right: City Style Ombre Tank (also available in white/gray fade) at NYandCompany.com, $32.95

Shipwrecked! Or, the story of how The Budget Babe's International Travel Advisor Fifi LaMode almost ended up as shark bait. —TBB


by Fifi LaMode
When you go on a regular vacation and it rains, you open your umbrella and keep plodding along. When it rains at sea, it's a bit more complicated. After a couple of days of pleasant, relatively uneventful sailing, we were given a route going northeast and told it would take around 4 hours. Unfortunately, we'd be sailing against the wind, so we'd have to tack a lot. (Tacking - remember? It's where you go back and forth in a zigzag instead of straight ahead.) Also, the waves were about 12 feet high. What started out as a choppy ride turned really nasty when the rain started. (Of course I left my rain poncho on the kitchen table, where it really came in handy, right?)

So we have howling winds, 12 ft. waves, pounding rain, and one big fat crybaby of a Fifi. After 5 hours and no closer to port than we were 3 hours ago, I totally freak, like in shock. I'm shaking, crying, blubbering, you name it. Fortunately my husband is a few notches up on the sanity scale and insists no harm will come to us. I put on my life jacket just in case and have visions of me as Kate Winslet on the raft in "Titanic." Then I get in a bad mood - self-pity does that to you - and blame my husband for all of this, since the vacation was his dream holiday, not mine. He asks what I want him to do. I order him to forget sailing as a sport today and turn on the darned motor and get us to port. He meekly complies.