Close for a Week: What the Owner's Vacation Actually Costs

You took three days off last year. Here's what a week actually costs — and the cheapest way to take it.

A week away is not free, and it is not everything either. Some of the week's revenue comes back later, some is gone, a few customers leave for good, the rent runs regardless, and the staff are either paid to stay home, laid off, or led by someone else. This workbook prices the three honest ways to take a week, line by line, as the extra cost over a normal week.

The sample. Close and pay the staff: $10,365 — twelve weeks of normal profit. Close and lay them off: $7,840, with the chance someone quits priced in. Stay open with a stand-in: $2,636, three weeks of profit, $527 a day off. The stand-in saves $5,204 over closing.

The finding. The expensive line is never the rent. It is the share of the business that only works with you in it — and the processes nobody wrote down. The dashboard grades both, plus what comes back if you close, what the stand-in costs the week, and the days you took against the days you want.

The dashboard grades it — HEALTHY, WATCH or ALERT on eight measures, with a chart of the three options against a normal week's profit. One portrait page. Then book the week.

Built for

Salons and barbers · small trades firms · restaurants and cafés · shops · clinics · agencies · anyone whose business has never run without them.

What you get

One .xlsx file, five tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ins, no subscription. A realistic sample is loaded so you see every color of the grading before you type over it.