How much money do you need for the wheel?
Every cash-secured put needs the full strike behind it. Enter a stock price, how many positions you want and the cash you'd keep aside — see what the plan needs, and whether your account covers it.
How it works: one cash-secured put needs the strike × 100 in cash, because you may have to buy 100 shares. Cash for the plan = stock price × 100 × positions. The buffer is extra cash kept on the side for rolls, a bad month, or a stock you end up holding longer than planned: total = plan × (1 + buffer %). If you enter your account, the page shows how many positions it covers (rounded down) and how big one stock is as a share of it. Fees left out.
Why the number is bigger than beginners expect
The default is a hypothetical plan (an illustration, not a trade idea): three stocks near $45, with 20% kept aside. That is $13,500 for the positions and $16,200 with the buffer — for stocks most people would call cheap. A $10,000 account covers one of those positions with the buffer. The cash is not optional: it is what makes the put "cash-secured", and it is what you own the shares with when assignment comes. Running the wheel strategy on money you don't have means margin, and margin turns a stock that fell into a stock that fell with interest and a call from the broker.
Small account? Change the plan, not the cushion
If your account comes up short, the honest fixes are fewer positions or cheaper stocks — not dropping the buffer, and not margin. One stock at 45% of the account means one assignment that keeps falling moves the whole account; the per-stock cap in the position size calculator is the other half of this math. What you're agreeing to with each put is in the cash-secured put, explained. In Canada, whether a TFSA or RRSP may hold cash-secured puts depends on the broker, and options permissions differ by broker everywhere — check before you plan around registered money.
The Options Wheel System · $99 · one payment
Learn the whole wheel, in order — then use it for life.
22 plain-English modules from complete beginner to running the wheel: covered calls, cash-secured puts, assignment, rolling, the math and the risk rules — with a scored quiz after every part and a daily deals board that applies the same rules to real markets.
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