The Standby Line: Apply for Credit in the Best Month You've Ever Had, Not the Worst.

Banks lend to businesses that don't need the money — which sounds like a complaint and is actually instructions. A $50,000 line costs the sample shop $470 a year to keep sitting there unused, including the owner's own time. The one week it's needed, it replaces a merchant cash advance that would have cost $8,750 on the same $25,000: a single Tuesday that pays for seventeen years of standby.

How it works

• The Cost of Standby — fees plus your hours, then that number as a share of revenue. It's usually a rounding error, and almost nobody has checked. You pay interest only in the weeks you actually borrow
• The Cost of Scrambling — one emergency funded three ways: the line you already have, the cash advance most owners end up taking (with its real annualised rate), and no credit at all. The saving is computed, then translated into years of standby fees
• The Application — apply in your best quarter, what to gather in one folder before the first call, where to ask, and the four questions to ask back: the rate and what it's tied to, every fee, the covenants, and exactly what a personal guarantee covers

Built for

Contractors · restaurants · retail · seasonal businesses · agencies — anyone one broken compressor away from an expensive decision.

What you get

One .xlsx file, four tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no subscription.