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Black Friday isn't automatically the cheapest time to buy everything

• End-of-season deals are happening now: Retailers are clearing grills, patio furniture, lawn equipment, and other summer merchandise.

• Waiting has a downside: Prices could fall further, but the model, size, or color you want may disappear first.

• Some things are worth waiting for Black Friday: Adobe's 2025 holiday data shows shoppers got some of the deepest discounts on electronics, toys, apparel, TVs, and computers.

If you're eyeing a new TV, waiting for Black Friday probably makes sense. But if it's a grill, lawn mower, or patio set, waiting could be a mistake.

That's because retailers are already clearing out some of the very products that aren't likely to be the stars of Black Friday. And while prices could fall further, the tradeoff is that the size, model, or color you want may disappear first.

Consumer Reports' September price tracking shows discounts across a number of outdoor and seasonal categories, including grills, lawn mowers, and outdoor power equipment.

Here are six purchases worth considering right now.

1. Grills

If your grill barely survived the summer, don't assume Black Friday is the best time to replace it.

Consumer Reports says prices are dropping on grills and other outdoor products as summer winds down. September is a transition month for retailers, when seasonal inventory starts getting cleared to make room for what's coming next.

And there's a second reason to shop now: better selection.

The longer you wait, the greater the chance the grill you actually want is gone. That means the lowest clearance price in November won't do you much good if all that's left is a model you don't want.

Current deals:

• Nexgrill 4-Burner Gas Grill with Side Burner: $199 at Home Depot, down from $279 $80 off (29%).

• Blackstone Bronco griddle/smoker combo: $898 at Walmart, down from $998 $100 off (10%). That price was reconfirmed in a Sept. 21 update.

• Pit Boss Austin XL 1000 pellet grill: $536 at Walmart, down from $596 $60 off (about 10%). A grill-price tracker checked the price Sept. 25 and identified it as the current Pit Boss deal.

2. Patio furniture

This might be the strongest "buy now" category on the list.

Retailers have a powerful incentive to get bulky patio furniture out of stores and warehouses once summer ends.

And the markdowns are already showing up.

Amazon patio furniture was recently being advertised at discounts of as much as 80%, including an outdoor umbrella base marked down from $399 to $80 and outdoor furniture sets selling for hundreds less than their listed prices.

Don't get hypnotized by the percentage-off number, though. Retailers can discount products from inflated list prices, so always search the exact model before buying.

The smart move: If you find the patio set you actually want at a substantial discount, there's little reason to gamble on it still being available two months from now.

Current deals:

• UDPatio 3-piece rocking bistro set Walmart: $148.99, down from $249.99 $101 off (40%), explicitly marked clearance.

• JUSKYS 7-piece patio conversation set Home Depot: $383, down from $558 $175 off (31%). Home Depot's listing is current today.

• Target Southport outdoor loveseat: $350, down from $500 $150 off (30%), explicitly marked clearance.

• Walmart Mainstays Chelsea 4-piece deep-seating set: $447, down from $597 $150 off (25%), currently labeled Rollback.

3. Lawn mowers and outdoor power equipment

Your mower may have made it through another summer, but now can be a better time to replace it than next spring.

Consumer Reports lists lawn mowers among the products that commonly get discounted in September and says prices are also dropping on products such as string trimmers and pressure washers as summer winds down.

It makes sense as a lawn mower taking up floor space in September is quickly becoming old inventory. Next April, that same category is suddenly something shoppers need again.

Be sure to not just look at the price of the tool. For battery-powered equipment, check what replacement batteries cost and whether the battery works with other tools you own.

Don't stop your clearance hunt at the lawn mower aisle, as discounts can extend to pressure washers, string trimmers, and other outdoor equipment as retailers transition into fall.

These aren't necessarily products shoppers associate with Black Friday, which is exactly why the end-of-season window matters.

Pro tip: Always search the model number and check its price history before buying. A giant "40% OFF" sign doesn't tell you what the product actually sold for a month ago. Theres a good chance its a fake sale and waiting may make more sense.

Current deals:

• Ryobi 40V HP self-propelled mower Home Depot: $449, down from $599 $150 off (25%)

• Milwaukee M18 FUEL mower + trimmer bundle Home Depot: $1,399, down from $1,549 $150 off

• Ryobi ONE+ HP leaf blower Home Depot: $199, down from $229 $30 off (13%)

• Greenworks 60V self-propelled mower Walmart: $398 with battery and rapid charger

4. Window and portable air conditioners

Buying an air conditioner when summer is ending feels backward.

That's exactly the point.

Demand drops when temperatures cool. Compare that with shopping during next summer's first heat wave, when thousands of other consumers may suddenly be looking for the same thing.

This is one of those purchases where buying before you need it can work in your favor.

There's an important caveat: Don't buy the wrong-size unit simply because it's on clearance. An undersized AC may struggle to cool a room, while buying much more cooling capacity than you need can create its own problems.

The smart move: If you know an aging unit needs to be replaced before next summer, start checking clearance prices now instead of waiting until it's 100 degrees outside.

Current deals:

• GE 12,000-BTU Smart Window AC GE Direct: $275.60, down from $499 $223.40 off (45%).

• Vissani 8,000-BTU Smart Portable AC Home Depot: $250, down from $361.77 $111.77 off (31%).

• LG 7,000-BTU Portable AC Home Depot: $319, down from $379 $60 off (16%)

5. Summer clothing, sandals, and swimwear

Here's where you have to separate "clothing" from "summer clothing."

Adobe found that apparel discounts peaked at 25.1% during the 2025 holiday season, giving shoppers a good reason to wait, especially on fall and winter clothing.

The takeaway is that there's no reason to rush out and buy jeans, sweaters, or other current-season clothing because you're afraid Black Friday won't have deals.

Summer merchandise is different, as retailers need the space currently occupied by shorts, sandals, swimsuits, and other warm-weather items. That can produce clearance prices that have little to do with the holiday shopping calendar.

The smart move: Shop now for summer basics you'll use next year, particularly if you find your size at a steep markdown. For current-season clothing, waiting for Black Friday makes more sense.

Current deals:

• Old Navy: 40% off everything, plus clearance summer/swim items reaching 80%+ off.

• Macys: Current womens clearance includes up to 65% off sandals and swimwear, with additional savings using its current promo code on eligible items.

• Target: Large summer/vacation clearance selection is live now; Target is also advertising up to 40% off thousands of items during its Oct. 67 Circle Deal Days.

• Abercrombie & Fitch: Clearance sale currently has select styles up to 75% off.

6. Trees, shrubs, and perennial plants

Here's the sleeper deal many consumers dont think about. As summer ends, your local garden centers and nurseries have an inventory problem too.

Penn State Extension says garden centers preparing for winter discount in-stock nursery products including perennials, shrubs, and trees, in part because keeping those plants alive through winter costs retailers time and money.

And unlike buying a grill you might store until spring, fall can actually be an excellent time to use what you buy.Cooler temperatures can help trees, shrubs, and perennials establish roots without the heat stress of summer. The exact planting window depends heavily on where you live, however, so shoppers in colder climates need to leave enough time before the ground freezes.

Clearance plants also require some detective work.Brown leaves don't necessarily mean a plant is dead, particularly as it enters dormancy. But diseased, severely root-bound or cold-sensitive plants aren't bargains just because they're 70% off.

The smart move: Check the roots, verify the plant is hardy for your climate, and ask whether clearance plants still qualify for the nursery's normal guarantee.

What should you wait until Black Friday to buy?

Here's where last year's numbers are particularly useful.

Adobe Analytics tracked more than one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million products, and 18 product categories during its analysis of the 2025 holiday season.

The discounts consumers actually received peaked at:

• 30.9% on electronics

• 29.6% on toys

• 25.1% on apparel

• 24.3% on TVs

• 23.4% on computers

• 20.3% on sporting goods

• 20.2% on appliances

• 18.8% on furniture

These percentages aren't advertised estimates. Theyre exactly what Adobe says happened during the 2025 holiday shopping season. This gives shoppers a pretty compelling reason to wait on a TV or laptop, but not necessarily on a grill or lawn mower.

The holiday deal wars start in October

There's another reason you shouldn't automatically wait until Black Friday: The holiday sale wars are starting weeks earlier.

For example, Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days runs Oct. 6-7 with millions of deals across more than 35 categories. Target is holding its competing Circle Deal Days on the same dates, while Walmart's fall sale runs Oct. 5-11.

The better rule isn't simply "wait until Black Friday, instead, think about why the product is discounted.

If a retailer is trying to unload a grill, patio set, or lawn mower because its season is ending, now may be your opportunity. If it's a TV, laptop, or another product that historically sees deep holiday discounts, waiting will usually pay off.

In other words, don't shop by the calendar. Shop by the reason behind the sale.

Families are changing what they buy as food, snacks, school supplies, and other everyday expenses add up

• 71% of parents say they expect to spend more on everyday school-year essentials this year than last year.

• 64% have swapped at least one of their childs favorite brands for a cheaper store-brand alternative.

• Parents are treating recurring grocery and household costs as part of the school-year budget, with some cutting back on items their kids regularly request.

The back-to-school rush may be over, but the costs of keeping kids fed, supplied, and ready for school dont stop once the first day arrives.

A new study from DOSS found that 71% of parents expect to spend more on everyday school-year essentials this year than they did last year, with many families changing what they buy to keep costs under control.

Eshaan Kaul, Head of Growth at DOSS, spoke with us about how these ongoing expenses are affecting family budgets and the trade-offs parents are making as the school year continues.

How the study was conducted

To better understand how rising prices are affecting families during the school year, DOSS surveyed 811 U.S. parents of K-12 children in 2026. The parents were all adults aged 18 or older, with an average age of 42, and represented a range of household income levels.

DOSS also surveyed 205 K-12 teachers to examine how higher costs are affecting classrooms. In addition to the survey responses, researchers analyzed U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics pricing data, comparing June 2026 prices with those from June 2019.

The survey found that parents expect to spend a median of about $200 per month on everyday school-year consumables, and 71% said that amount is higher than what they spent last year.

Many families are also changing what they buy to manage those higher costs. Nearly two-thirds of parents (64%) said they have switched one of their child's favorite brands for a cheaper store-brand alternative this school year, while 45% said they have stopped buying a snack, drink, or lunch item their child regularly asks for because it became too expensive.

The pricing data showed why those changes may be necessary. DOSS found that a fixed basket of common lunchbox staples cost nearly 45% more in June 2026 than it did in June 2019, rising from $21.57 to $31.38. Orange juice saw the largest increase among the items examined, with prices rising 96% over that period.

The grocery bill

Kaul said that the grocery bill is likely the biggest hidden cost that many parents dont factor into their school spending.

Parents budget for an August shopping trip, and then treat lunch ingredients, snacks, and paper products as ordinary household spending when theyre really school expenses that recur every week of the school year, Kaul explained.

Our research also showed that a fixed assortment of common lunchbox items, which cost $21.57 in 2019, now costs $31.38, a rise of nearly 45%. These small, repeated purchases can accumulate over the course of the school year.

This is especially true when it comes to popular name brand versus store brand options. The rising costs of just about everything have changed how many parents are shopping at their local grocery stores.

The name brands got too expensive, full stop, Kaul said. Every food and paper item we priced has risen faster than overall inflation since 2019, and parents are responding the way youd expect: 64% have swapped at least one of their childs favorite brands for a store brand this year, and 45% have stopped buying a snack, drink, or lunch item their child regularly asks for.

The hardest category to give up is breakfast. When parents cut back, 26% say breakfast foods are the one thing they protect. That said, even breakfast isnt unaffected: 28% of parents have replaced Pop-Tarts with a cheaper alternative and 26% have replaced Eggo. This doesnt go unnoticed by kids. 36% of parents told us their child complained after a switch.

Change how you budget

For parents who may be struggling to keep up with back-to-school costs, Kaul has some advice.

Treat school-year consumables as a recurring monthly expense, not a one-time August cost, Kaul said. From there, decide what your household actually cares about and cut elsewhere.

Parents are already doing this instinctively: 26% keep their childrens favorite breakfast foods when they trim spending, and 64% have moved at least one favorite brand to a store-brand version. Giving these purchases their own line in the monthly budget makes the true cost of the school year visible, and its a lot easier to manage a number you can see.

Land Rover, Forest River, and Ford are part of this week's auto recall roundup

New research suggests weight during adolescence may play a role in how quickly the body ages

• A long-term study found a connection between higher BMI during adolescence and faster biological aging later in life.

• Researchers followed thousands of people for decades and used genetic data and DNA-based measures to study the relationship.

• The findings suggest that higher BMI during the teen years may contribute to faster biological aging, although the researchers say more work is needed.

Getting older on the calendar and aging biologically aren't necessarily the same thing. While chronological age simply counts the years someone has been alive, biological aging looks at how quickly the body appears to be aging based on changes happening at the cellular level.

A new study published in the International Journal of Obesity suggests that having a higher body mass index (BMI) during adolescence may be associated with faster biological aging later in life.

The researchers were particularly interested in whether genetics and weight during the teenage years could help explain differences in how quickly people biologically age. The study doesn't mean that a person's BMI determines exactly how quickly they will age, but it adds to research looking at how weight earlier in life may be connected to health decades later.

Our findings suggest that genetic predisposition to high body mass index is associated with accelerated biological aging, Doctoral Researcher Anni Pitknen said in a news release. Part of this association may be explained by the fact that the inherited predisposition is reflected in higher adolescent BMI.

How did researchers study the connection?

The researchers used information from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, a long-running study that began in 1980. The participants included 3,596 people who were between ages 3 and 18 when the study began, and researchers followed them through 20182020.

For the analysis, researchers looked at BMI measurements taken during adolescence, including measurements at ages 9, 12, 15, and 18. They also examined participants' genetic predisposition to having a higher BMI using genetic information involving hundreds of variants associated with body weight.

To estimate biological aging, researchers analyzed DNA methylation from blood samples. They used two "epigenetic clocks" computer-based tools that estimate biological aging based on changes to DNA. The researchers also used a statistical technique called Mendelian randomization to examine whether genetically predicted BMI might have a causal relationship with biological aging.

What did the study find?

The researchers found that a higher BMI during adolescence was associated with faster biological aging in adulthood. Higher genetic predisposition to BMI was also associated with accelerated biological aging, and some of that relationship appeared to be explained by having a higher BMI during adolescence.

The evidence for a causal relationship was strongest when researchers used the DunedinPACE measure of biological aging. In that analysis, they estimated that a one-unit increase in genetically predicted adolescent BMI was associated with about 0.02 years of faster biological aging per calendar year. However, results were not consistent across all of the biological-aging measures used in the study.

The researchers also noted an important limitation: some of the association may be related to BMI in adulthood, since higher BMI during adolescence can continue into adult life. The study therefore doesn't establish that adolescent BMI alone determines how quickly someone ages.

For consumers, the findings add to evidence that health and weight patterns earlier in life can have long-term implications. But they don't mean an individual teenager's BMI can be used to predict exactly how they will age or what health problems they will develop.

The results of our study emphasize the importance of preventing overweight and obesity throughout the life course, Pitknen said.

New law will make pesticide use more visible to shoppers and families

• California has passed a new law requiring the state to track and publicly disclose the use of PFAS pesticides on crops.

• EWG says more than 2.5 million pounds of PFAS pesticides are applied to California crops each year.

• The new tracking system could give consumers, farmers, and regulators more information about where these chemicals are being used.

California is taking a new step toward tracking forever chemicals used on crops. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1603 into law on Sept. 28, requiring the state to monitor and publicly disclose the use of pesticides containing PFAS.

PFAS refers to a large group of chemicals known for being extremely persistent in the environment. Some PFAS have also been linked to health concerns, including cancer, immune system suppression, and reproductive and developmental harm, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The organization says state agencies previously did not systematically track how much PFAS pesticide was being used on California crops. The new law is intended to change that.

Signing AB 1603 into law is a vital step toward ensuring Californias agricultural legacy is defined by health and innovation, Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank) said in a news release. Tracking and monitoring is the crucial first step. You cant fix what you cant see.

What the new law requires

AB 1603 establishes a class-based definition of PFAS pesticides and requires California's Department of Pesticide Regulation to systematically track their use and make that information available to the public.

That could provide a clearer picture of which crops are being treated, where the chemicals are being used, and in what quantities.

EWG says its research found that more than 2.5 million pounds of PFAS pesticides are applied to California crops each year. Its testing also found PFAS pesticides on nine out of 10 California-grown samples of non-organic peaches, nectarines, and plums that were tested by the state. The organization also reported finding PFAS pesticides in local waterways and sediment.

The law is narrower than the original proposal, according to EWG, following lobbying from agricultural and chemical industry groups.

What this means for consumers

For shoppers, the biggest immediate change is more information rather than a ban. The new law does not prohibit PFAS pesticides from being used on California crops. Instead, it creates a system for tracking and disclosing their use.

EWG says the data could eventually help support decisions about pesticide restrictions, assistance for farmers transitioning away from PFAS pesticides, and additional monitoring of water.

California-grown fruits and vegetables are sold both in the state and throughout the country, so the information collected could be relevant to consumers beyond California as well.

For now, consumers who want to reduce pesticide exposure can continue following basic produce-safety practices, including washing fruits and vegetables before eating them. The new tracking requirements should also make it easier for the public to see where and how much PFAS pesticide is being used as that information becomes available.

Because of their chemical structures, all PFAS share the core characteristics of extreme environmental persistence and potential harm to immune and reproductive systems, said Varun Subramaniam, EWG science analyst. That raises serious concerns about the long-term health risks of using PFAS pesticides on food crops.

Thanks to Gov. Newsom, were finally telling it like it is, so farmers, regulators and the public alike can be aware of the extent of this hidden PFAS use. This kind of tracking and monitoring has to come first, before we can talk about what comes next.