Cash Reserve
A cash reserve is money set aside, ahead of time, to pay your fixed costs through a quiet stretch you already know is coming. It is not the same as cash flow, which is the everyday gap between money earned and money actually banked.
What it means
Cash flow describes a gap that opens and closes every month as invoices go out and get paid. A cash reserve is a deliberate stockpile built for a specific, known quiet stretch — a seasonal dip, most often — so your fixed costs keep getting paid even in a month that brings in little or no income.
The reserve gets built during the busy months, a share at a time, not found all at once when the quiet month arrives. Sized against your fixed costs and the length of your own quiet stretch, it turns a predictable dip into a paid-for gap instead of a scramble.
A business with $1,800 a month in fixed costs and a three-month quiet stretch needs roughly $5,400 set aside to clear the whole dip. Saving $675 a month across the eight busy months gets there before the quiet stretch starts.
Confusing a cash reserve with cash flow, and assuming a profitable busy season means the quiet months will take care of themselves — the reserve is a separate stockpile, not a side effect of being busy.
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