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The Short Answer
Bedding is the one category with a discount holiday built for it. The January White Sale runs 20% to 75% off across department stores and direct-to-consumer brands alike, and it beats Black Friday on sheets almost every year. Can't wait? Black Friday weekend is the strong runner-up. The stretch to skip is right now, because September and October are the two slowest months on the bedding calendar.
Sheets are the rare thing you can put off buying almost indefinitely. Nothing breaks, nothing expires, and the set on your bed will limp along another few months. That's lucky, because bedding has the most predictable discount calendar in retail, and the gap between the best week and the worst one is enormous.
The reason is a sale that's been running since 1878. A Philadelphia department store owner named John Wanamaker invented the White Sale to shift linens after the holidays, and every January since, the entire industry has marked bedding down together. It's the only category where the biggest discount of the year lands nowhere near Black Friday.
The Bedding Deal Calendar
Every sale window, ranked by how much you save
We scored each shopping window on the discount you can realistically expect on sheets, duvets and comforters. A longer, greener bar means a better time to buy.
The single best week of the year for bedding, and it's been that way since 1878. Discounts run 20% to 75% off, with the department stores landing hardest at 50% to 75% on sheets and towels. Everything is marked down at once, so you can shop on quality rather than on whoever happens to be promoting.
The strong runner-up, and the bedding sales tend to run the whole month of November rather than the single weekend. Comforters and duvet inserts do better here than sheets do, because they read as gifts.
The direct-to-consumer brands treat this as their spring event, with 15% to 75% off depending on the label. Sitewide cuts around 30% are typical, which beats what those brands offer at any other point before November.
Worth watching if you're buying on Amazon rather than from a bedding brand. The percale and sateen sets that sit in the $25 to $50 range see their sharpest cuts of the summer here.
August is when everybody moves and every dorm gets outfitted, so retailers put sheets and towels on promotion to catch it. Selection skews toward twin and twin XL, but queen and king get pulled along.
The two slowest months on the bedding calendar. Retailers have finished the back-to-school push and are holding everything back for Black Friday, so there's very little worth buying. If you're reading this now, that's the situation you're in.
The worst possible timing. Bedding is being sold as a gift at full price, and the biggest markdown of the entire year is two or three weeks away. Anything you buy here you'll see cheaper before the month is out.
