Setting up your first six reserves

Six reserves is the entire ReservWise mental model. Once they're set up, every dollar of income knows where it's going — without you running the numbers each time. This guide gets all six configured in one sitting, with starting floors that are realistic for your first month rather than aspirational.

If you've already read Picking your allocation order, this is the next step: same six reserves, now we're filling in the actual numbers.

The six reserves at a glance

Each reserve is a virtual bucket inside ReservWise. They aren't separate bank accounts (unless you want them to be — see Building Reserves for the bank-account option). Income flows top-down, filling each one in priority order.

1. 🔴 Survival — keeps your life running for one month. Rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, baseline insurance, transportation.
2. 🟠 Business Ops — keeps the business running. Software, contractors, hosting, professional services you've already committed to.
3. 🟡 Tax Reserve — what you'll owe federal, state, and self-employment tax. Non-negotiable. This reserve doesn't get touched until tax day.
4. 🟢 Growth — discretionary investment in the business. Ad spend, equipment, courses, hires.
5. 🔵 Lifestyle — the upgrades that make running a business feel worth it. Dinners, travel, the gym membership you actually use.
6. 🟣 Wealth Building — long-haul money. Index funds, retirement, real estate down payments, anything that compounds.

Picking a starting floor for each one

A "floor" is the minimum dollar amount the reserve should hold before income spills into the next one. Don't guess in a vacuum — use last month's actual spending. Your goal is a number you'd defend out loud, not a wish.

🔴 Survival floor

Add up rent, utilities, groceries, baseline insurance, gas or transit, and any minimum debt payments. That's one month. If you want a buffer, multiply by 1.5. For most operators this lands between $2,500 and $6,000.

🟠 Business Ops floor

Pull last month's business credit-card statement and add up the recurring software, hosting, and contractor invoices. Round up by 15%. Most solo operators are between $200 and $1,500 here.

🟡 Tax Reserve floor

The simplest rule: 25–30% of gross income, set as a percentage rather than a flat floor. ReservWise applies it automatically as money lands. If you want a flat floor on top, set it equal to one quarter of last year's tax bill divided by three.

🟢 Growth floor

Pick a number you'd be embarrassed not to invest. For first-year operators that's often $500–1,500/month. For established businesses with ad spend, it's whatever your monthly ad budget actually is.

🔵 Lifestyle floor

What does a normal month of "you spent something on yourself" look like? Don't lowball it — Lifestyle that's set too low is the reserve that gets quietly raided when you want a dinner out, which corrupts the whole system. $500–2,000 is typical.

🟣 Wealth Building floor

Set this to whatever's left after the other five are running clean. Many operators leave Wealth uncapped for the first three months and just send the surplus there. Once you see the actual surplus pattern, set a floor that matches your retirement-contribution cadence.

The 15-minute setup, step by step

1. Open Settings → Allocation. The default order (Survival → Business Ops → Tax → Growth → Lifestyle → Wealth) is already in place.
2. Click each reserve in turn. Set its floor using the numbers above.
3. For Tax, switch the input mode to Percent of gross and enter 25–30 depending on your bracket.
4. For Wealth Building, leave the floor blank for the first month so surplus accumulates there.
5. Click Save allocation rules. The next deposit will use these floors.
6. Open Dashboard. You'll see all six reserves displayed with their current balances, floors, and a tiny progress ring for each.

What you'll see on day one

If your first deposit lands before all six reserves are full to their floors, only the top reserves will show progress. That's the system working. The lower reserves are intentionally empty — they're waiting for surplus.

If your first deposit fills every reserve to its floor with money left over, the leftover goes to the last reserve in the order (Wealth Building by default). Watch where the surplus actually lands for two weeks before you adjust anything.

Common first-day mistakes

• Setting Survival too high to feel "safe". Higher floor = lower reserves never fill. Set it to one realistic month, not three.
• Skipping the Tax reserve because "I'll handle it at year end". The IRS doesn't accept that. Use the percent mode and forget about it.
• Putting Wealth Building before Lifestyle. See Picking your allocation order for why this backfires.
• Setting all six floors at the same time without looking at last month's data. Spend 10 minutes in your bank app first. Round numbers based on real spending always beat round numbers based on hope.

What to do next

• Read How the six-tier priority system works for the math behind the model.
• Set up Surplus Allocation Rules so overflow money has a home.
• Run The 10-minute new-customer checklist if you haven't yet — it includes Plaid linking and your first import.
• Come back in two weeks and adjust. The system rewards patience over tinkering.

Six reserves is enough structure to run a life and a business through, and few enough that you can hold them all in your head. Set the floors once. Let the software do the rest.