One cheap option I found was to find a LBS that sold a lot of road bikes. They normally have a bin of all the take off saddles that people used for test rides. People dropping a grand plus generally want to throw on a brooks, SLR, Fizzik or similar and so the functional but decent saddle on the bike gets tossed/upgraded.

I picked up my current saddle for 15 bones this way and its a decent Selle Italia that suits me fine.