8 . If you’ll be taking vacation time in the coming year and plan on flying, here are some useful tips for buying a cheap ticket.

When to buy

If you’re going to buy tickets for domestic (国内的) flights, check prices on Tuesday afternoons. This is an old tip but still useful because most U. S. carriers continue to release sales on Tuesday morning, and competitors quickly drop their fares to match the better deals.

When to fly

Weekdays continue to be generally cheaper times to fly than weekends for most flights. In the U. S. , the cheapest days are typically Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. A good itinerary (旅行计划) for the expensive U. S. spring break travel period is scheduled from Tuesday to Saturday; it will save you money (in most cases).

Where to fly

We continue to see good deals to Boston and Denver and more and more nice prices to Chicago, Seattle and Washington, D. C. . As for Europe, there have been surprising deals throughout the fall and those will continue into the winter.

Direct flights vs connecting flights

Compare the price of direct flights with that of connecting flights. Sometimes adding a stop to your route will save you money, and it might be enough to endure the extra long flying day. An example: San Francisco to Raleigh: $553 for a direct flight, $362 with one stop.

You'd better think twice about the direct flight for San Francisco to Raleigh.

Compare, compare, compare

Stifle the impulse to go to your favorite airline site to purchase tickets without doing any comparison. Example: Let’s say you want to fly from New York to London and figure your favorite U. S. legacy carrier will get you there for the best price—$554 for a round trip.

However, the comparison site also shows a cheaper flight from the same legacy carrier ($521). See what you're missing when you fail to do comparison?

10 . Have you ever looked at a fashionable item of clothing and felt confused? If so, your confusion may have made sense.

Several months ago, high fashion brand Balenciaga released a “T-shirt shirt”, which is a shirt sewn on the front of a T-shirt. The unusual design has certainly confused a lot of people.

But the “double shirt” isn’t fighting alone on the frontier of strange fashion. Ever since US shoe manufacturer Crocs released its famous hole-filled foam shoes, the so-called “ugly fashion” hasn’t showed any signs of slowing down, the Business of Fashion website noted.

British designer Paul Surridge believes that the rise of ugly fashion is a sign that people are bored with looking perfect all the time. “Fashion thrives(蓬勃发展) on novelty”, he told the Financial Times.

Indeed, fashion is all about changes. Something that’s considered uncool one minute can then turn out to be the latest must-have fashion item the next.

And in the eyes of US fashion writer Megan Collins, ugly doesn’t necessarily mean the design of the item is ugly. After all, ugly is something subjective. “Ugly fashion means ‘not the mainstream’——it is not what everyone’s wearing; it is not what the general population considers as ‘in’ right now,” she told style news site Fashionista.

But throughout the history of fashion, when any new trend appears, most people tend to hate it, before it eventually becomes loved. As Italian designer Miuccia Prada told The New York Times, “Maybe because it is newer, ugly is attractive. Ugly is exciting.”

Meanwhile, popular social media fashion bloggers also help people to pick up new ugly fashion trends. These bloggers express themselves through their clothes, showing their unique personalities and making comments on their clothing choices. However, as Clever-ish Magazine noted, just being comfortable in your own skin could actually be “the best look”.

“I personally love having a unique expression because without ugly fashion and diversity, we’d all look the same,” Australian fashion influencer(网红) and model Zanita Whittington told Fashionista. “I appreciate anything that’s out of the norm(规范).”