79% of Consumers Had Under $1,000 Set Aside for the Holidays — Your Bills Didn't Wait

Nearly 4 in 5 consumers — 79% — went into the 2025 holidays with under $1,000 set aside. That one line explains your December calendar better than any forecast. The work is still out there. The cash is what moved.

The number that should be taped to your dashboard

Roofing Contractor published a piece in November on winter cash flow strategies that reads like it was written for roofers and lands squarely on anyone who sells a big-ticket job in a slow month. The setup is simple: bad weather cuts the days crews can install, homeowners push work to spring, and the fixed bills keep showing up — payroll, insurance, truck payments.

Then the article drops the number. It cites Achieve's Season of Spending survey: 79% of consumers went into the 2025 holidays with under $1,000 set aside.

And they are not pulling back. A 2026 survey found 77% of consumers plan to hold holiday spending steady or raise it this year.

Put those two lines together and you have your December. My read: the money did not vanish. It went to the holidays.

The article paints the scene every contractor has lived: a homeowner finds out in December that a $15,000 roof replacement is needed, right after the holiday shopping. Or the insurance check covers only part of it.

The piece says it plainly: "The need is real, but the timing is hard." That is your sales floor in a sentence. Not a lead problem. A timing problem.

Why the slowdown lands so hard

The article is specific about the squeeze. Cold snaps and shorter days eat into the work calendar, and so do cold-weather installation limits. On top of that, holiday budgets pull money away from home projects, so plenty of homeowners hold off on anything that is not urgent.

The piece is just as blunt about the squeeze: "Even when revenue slows, expenses don't." That explains the whole season.

For roofers, the article's answer is service work. It can keep a crew working and bring in cash between the bigger jobs. And it says to get those services in front of people before the slowdown, so past customers and new leads both know what the crew can take on when it is cold.

Swap roof repair for a bathroom refresh or a system check, and nothing about that logic changes. Which is exactly why the next part matters.

What this means if you sell remodels or solar

Here is my read, and it is opinion, not reporting.

Picture a remodeling contractor in mid-December. The design is done, the quote is out, and the homeowner goes quiet. Not because the kitchen got ugly overnight. Because the same holiday math the article describes hit their checking account. That job is not dead. It is parked. If your only move is to promise a call in spring, you hand it to whoever offers a way to start in January.

Picture a solar installer with a signed proposal sitting in a homeowner's inbox through the holidays. The article's point that flexible financing gives homeowners another way to pay is the whole ballgame here. Offering a payment path can take the budget worry off the table and keep a project moving. It is a timing tool.

And one more, straight from the article: full replacements can get harder to predict in winter. For you, that means the big installs get lumpy, and the smaller jobs — service calls, repairs, maintenance — are what keep the crew billed while the big stuff slides.

So the owner who wins the first quarter is not the one with the best ad. It is the one still standing in front of the customer in January with a way to say yes.

How to use it this week

1. Write down your fixed monthly nut. The article notes that a lot of contractors find it helps to know their key numbers before the slowdown. Do it on one page: payroll, insurance, truck or van payments, rent, software. That number is what January has to cover. One sitting.

1. Build one service offer and promote it now. The article says to get those services in front of people before the slowdown. For a remodeler, that is a small-job punch list — a bathroom refresh, cabinet refacing, a repair visit. For a solar installer, it is a system check, a panel cleaning, an inverter review. Put it in an email and a text this week.

1. Call a batch of past customers with a maintenance angle. The article notes that regular contact with past customers can surface small repairs before they grow into bigger problems. A stack of calls, one afternoon. Ask what they have been putting off.

1. Put a payment option on every quote you send between now and March. The article's line is that financing gives homeowners another way to pay for a big project. If you already work with a lender, put the monthly number on the quote next to the total. If you don't, that is your next phone call.

1. Review your financing setup now, not in April. The article says the cold months are a smart time to check your financing setup or look at other options before spring gets busy. Do it while the calendar is soft.

1. Change your follow-up question. Stop asking whether they are still interested. Ask whether it is the work or the timing. My read: that one swap does more than any new script, because it lets the customer tell you the truth without feeling sold. For a remodeler, a text can say you are checking in on the kitchen quote, note that plenty of people push projects past the holidays for budget reasons rather than a change of mind, and offer to send a monthly payment option so they can decide with real numbers. For a solar installer, an email can carry a subject line about timing versus budget, two sentences on what actually slows a proposal down, and an offer to put numbers in front of them — or to fix the design if the work is the issue. On the phone, either trade: say you are not calling to push, then ask which one it is, the job or the money.

1. Keep the ads running. My opinion, not the article's: owners who turn spend off in December pay more to restart in March. The article's whole argument is that the demand is still there and homeowners simply put off work that can wait. Stay in front of it.

Mistakes to avoid

• Treating a promise to call in spring as a no. It is a timing objection. The article's numbers show a budget squeeze, not a customer who is gone.
• Only quoting the big job. The article points at service work as the thing that keeps crews working between the bigger jobs. If your only offer is the full replacement, December is empty by design.
• Waiting until the spring rush to line up payment options. The article says to look at that before the rush.
• Cutting the ad budget to zero and calling it discipline. My read: you save a little in December and pay to rebuild the pipeline in March.