10 Money-Saving Moves to Make This Fall
Autumn ushers in pumpkin-spiced lattes, harvest festivals and beautiful fall foliage. It also presents opportunities to improve your finances.
Whether you’re looking to tighten your budget or get a head start on holiday shopping, these fall money-saving moves can help you reduce costs and avoid overspending both now and in 2027.
Prepare your home for winter
Check for any home repairs that need to be addressed before the colder weather arrives. Also, make sure to tick off important home maintenance tasks, like trimming trees, clearing out gutters and air sealing windows and doors. “Homeowners should focus on small preventative expenses that can avoid larger ones,” says Trent Von Ahsen, a certified financial planner and managing partner at Cedar Point Capital Partners in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
A home energy audit, where a professional uses specialized equipment to assess your house’s energy efficiency, can help identify problem areas. Correcting air leaks alone can lower a home’s energy costs by up to 30 percent, according to the District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment.
A professional energy audit typically costs between $200 and $700, according to HomeAdvisor, an online marketplace that connects homeowners with service professionals. Your city or utility company might offer free or subsidized energy audits. Low-income households may qualify for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program, which helps recipients save an average of $372 a year on energy costs through energy-efficient improvements and upgrades.
Reshop your mobile phone plan
Fall is the best time of the year to get a deal on a cellphone plan, says Thad Hwang, CEO of Goji Mobile, an online marketplace for comparing wireless phone plans. “Fall is the closest thing our industry has to a buyer’s market on your monthly bill,” he says.
When Apple releases its new iPhone models in September, wireless carriers compete to get smartphone buyers to switch to their service plans by offering promotional pricing, waived fees and bill credits. Many of these offers run through Black Friday, when lower-cost carriers, in particular, offer some of their steepest discounts of the year, such as 30 percent off a full year of service, Hwang says. “Shoppers who use that window to compare plans, whether or not they need a new phone, routinely cut their bill by $40 to $125 a month,” he says.
Identify unused subscriptions and services
Review your credit card and bank statements for subscriptions, memberships or services that you aren’t using. “Individually, those charges may not seem meaningful, but by eliminating several of them, they can produce real, consistent savings,” Von Ahsen says. A 2026 report by CNET found that U.S. adults spend an average of $252 per year on unused subscriptions.
Finding and plugging these kinds of money leaks now can prevent them from continuing to drain your budget in 2027, Von Ahsen says. Plus, you can use the extra cash — along with the savings from switching to a lower-priced cellular plan — to help pay for holiday gifts. Speaking of …
Get a head start on holiday shopping
“You don’t have to wait until Black Friday to start checking gifts off your list,” says Ashley Feinstein Gerstley, a shopping and savings strategist for Rakuten, an online shopping portal that allows consumers to earn cash back on purchases. “Fall is increasingly filled with promotional moments.” By starting your holiday shopping in October, you can capitalize on early holiday sales, spread out your spending over several months and avoid inventory shortages closer to the holidays.
Before you begin shopping, Von Ahsen recommends creating a budget specifically for holiday shopping. “Decide what you can comfortably spend, set that money aside and then shop within it,” he says.
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