Variable income includes the months that don't show up. A late client, a slow quarter, an invoice that bounces — Lean Month Mode is the systematic response. It's not a punishment, it's a posture: pull in, protect what matters, wait for the next deposit.
The mode can run automatically (triggered by a threshold you set) or manually (you flip it on when you can see a slow month coming). Either way, the behavior is the same.
What Lean Month Mode actually does
- Pauses allocation to reserves you mark as "discretionary" — by default that's Lifestyle and Wealth Building.
- Suspends Surplus Allocation Rules. Any leftover money flows directly into the highest-priority reserve still under floor (usually Survival or Tax).
- Tightens warnings. "Below floor" warnings move from yellow to orange. "Below 25%" upgrades to a hard pause on draws from that reserve.
- Surfaces a banner on your dashboard showing you're in Lean Month and how to exit.
- Logs the entry/exit in your reports so you can see how often it's firing and whether your floors are tuned correctly.
How it triggers
Open Settings → Lean Month to set the trigger. Three options:
Automatic — by income
Lean Month activates if cumulative income for the calendar month is under a threshold you set (e.g. "$3,500 by the 15th"). Best for steady-but-uneven income.
Automatic — by reserve depletion
Lean Month activates if Survival drops below 50% of its floor and hasn't recovered in 7 days. Best for highly volatile income where calendar-based thresholds miss the actual signal.
Manual
You flip it on yourself. Useful when you know a slow month is coming (a client just delayed) but the system can't see it yet.
You can stack two triggers if you want. We recommend starting with Manual for the first month so you understand what the mode does, then switching to one of the automatic triggers.
What's protected, what's paused
Each reserve has a Lean Month status flag. Default settings:
- 🔴 Survival — Protected. Always fills first, regardless of mode.
- 🟠 Business Ops — Protected. The fixed costs of having a business don't go away in a slow month.
- 🟡 Tax Reserve — Protected. Pre-skim continues. The IRS bill is still coming.
- 🟢 Growth — Reduced. Floor temporarily halves; surplus rules toward Growth pause.
- 🔵 Lifestyle — Paused. Receives no allocation while Lean Month is on.
- 🟣 Wealth Building — Paused. Receives no allocation while Lean Month is on.
You can override any of these per-reserve in Settings → Lean Month → Per-reserve behavior. Some operators protect Wealth Building too because they treat their retirement contributions as fixed obligations.
How to exit
Lean Month exits in three ways:
- Auto-exit on threshold met. Income recovers above your threshold, or Survival climbs back above its floor for a sustained period (default: 7 days).
- Manual exit. Click End Lean Month in the dashboard banner. Useful when a big invoice lands mid-month.
- Calendar reset. A new calendar month starts and the trigger conditions re-evaluate from scratch.
On exit, paused reserves resume their normal allocation immediately. Surplus rules re-engage. The mode logs how long it was active and how much income arrived during it — useful for tuning the trigger thresholds.
When Lean Month is doing its job
- It fires once or twice a quarter for an operator with steady-uneven income. That's normal — slow months happen.
- It fires every month. That's a signal your trigger threshold is too high or your floors are too aggressive. Lower the threshold or revise the floors.
- It never fires. Either you have very stable income (lucky) or your trigger threshold is too low. Look at your reports — if Survival ever dipped below 50%, the mode should have fired.
- It exits and immediately re-enters. Add a 7-day cooldown in Settings → Lean Month → Cooldown to prevent flapping.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Pausing Tax during Lean Month. Don't. Tax pre-skim should always continue. The IRS won't accept "I had a slow month".
- Ignoring the Lean Month banner. The mode is communicating something. Read the report when it exits — you'll see exactly which reserves got starved.
- Setting the trigger too low. If you only enter Lean Month when you're already two weeks behind on rent, it's too late. Trigger should fire on the early signal, not the catastrophe.
- Permanently pausing Wealth Building. Lean Month should be temporary. If you're skipping wealth contributions every month, your floors don't match your real cost of living.
- Manually exiting too aggressively. You'll get a $5K invoice and want to flip back to normal. If your other reserves haven't recovered, the system will resume Lifestyle and Wealth allocation prematurely. Wait for the auto-exit signal.
What to do next
- Set the trigger to Manual for your first month so you can feel what the mode does without surprise.
- Read Drawing from a reserve safely for how warnings interact with Lean Month.
- Use What If Simulator to model what your reserves would look like if Lean Month fired for two consecutive months.
- Review your Lean Month report after the first time it triggers. The exit summary tells you whether your floors are calibrated.
Lean Month isn't a sign of failure. It's the sign that the system is doing what you hired it to do — protect the floor before you notice the wobble.