A Membership Audition, the Sleep at Night Cash Test, and Tasty Jams

Welcome back to RDTFM, where Dalton, Chad, and Chris crack open Hamilton Family Brewery's Cactus Jack, Brix City's Tasty Jams, and Edmund's Oast Bound by Time IPA on tax deadline day. This week the guys cover an Eagles meltdown in London, a membership audition round in Southern California, and how much cash a business should actually keep in the bank.

Pop That Top & The Scorecard

• Chris's London Letdown: No golf for Chris, who flew to London to watch the Eagles lose to the Jaguars. The highlight was an Eagles chant breaking out at the Changing of the Guard. His verdict on English beer: 4.6% to 4.8% and not great, though the Guinness holds up.

• Dalton's Membership Audition: Dalton changes shoes in the locker room, not the parking lot, and loses his very first tee shot in freshly overseeded six-to-eight-inch rough. He still gets around cart path only in 3 hours 17 minutes, finds out John Daly keeps a locker there, and passes the golf part. Next up: dinner with a member, then the official vote.

• Chad's Stupid Tax: Only nine holes for Chad, but the garage simulator upgrade is moving. He orders the wrong netting, pays about $150 in stupid tax to fix it, and passes on Rapsodo's lifetime subscription deal for the one-year plan.

The Approach: How Much Cash Should a Business Keep?

Chris brings the question he has been getting a lot lately: what is the right cash reserve?

• Three Months at Your Leanest: Dalton's floor is three months of operating costs measured at the business's leanest point. Above six months, he tells owners to take distributions. He also shares a client whose overdraw turned into debt and interest that wiped out her profit.

• Contractors, Nonprofits, and Going Concern: Chad starts nonprofits at about two months, wants a real cash-flow forecast for lumpy contractor work, and explains that going concern means surviving one year from the date the financials are released. A line of credit can get you through year one, but it catches up with you.

• The Can You Sleep at Night Index: Chris's firm recommends two to six months of operating expenses. A short survey covering project work, AR aging, pipeline, client concentration, hiring plans, and personal liquidity sets the multiplier against three months of average OpEx.

• Payroll Comes Last: Chris says payroll should be the last thing you cut. Chad and Dalton say to decide ahead of time, while things are good, whether a 20% payroll cut means layoffs or an across-the-board pay cut.

The Final Pour

• Another strong week on the RDTFM Leaderboard. Chad gives Brix City's Tasty Jams, a 6.5% hazy IPA, a 7.7. It's smooth and solid, but it isn't the punch in the face he likes. Chris gives Edmund's Oast Bound by Time, a 7% IPA and the house IPA at his club, an 8.6, his highest score yet, and says it would be an 8.8 if it were a little more abusive. Dalton gives Hamilton Family Brewery's Cactus Jack, a 6.5% pineapple-orange American wheat from Rancho Cucamonga, an 8.3 and calls it everything a Blue Moon isn't. Chad says the other two brought ringers. Everyone agrees nothing will ever be worse than Marshmallow Week.