Designer watches are great to have, and they give good quality yet without the excessive prices of the types of watches that are more related to chronographs and ocean yacht racing. Take Festina watches for example. Kenmarwatches.com have them at about half the manufacturers recommended price, so for just maybe a couple of hundred or even far less depending upon the model, you can have a great named watch that is not going to need a mortgage for you to buy it.
At Kenmar they even have a Jeep brand watch for under a hundred bucks.