What this is
Twelve instruments across six desks — Capital, Time, Compensation, Property, Acquisitions, Enterprise — each built for one expensive decision: the purchase, the offer, the hire, the second home, the exit. Every instrument prices its decision in the house doctrine: after-tax money, opportunity cost under three market assumptions, and hours of your life.
The instruments are deliberately narrow. A tool that answers one question completely beats a suite that answers forty questions approximately, and the questions here were chosen because getting them slightly wrong costs five figures and up.
What this is not
Not an advisory. Not a lead funnel wearing a calculator costume. Not a content farm with a formula stapled to eight hundred words of filler. There are no accounts because you shouldn't need permission to do arithmetic; no tracking because your decisions are your business; no advertising because a page that sells you something has an opinion about your answer.
Who it's for
People whose decisions move real money and who have noticed that past a certain income, the scarce asset is time — founders, executives, professionals, owners. The instruments assume you can read a table, tolerate an honest verdict, and would rather see the formula than be told to trust the box.
The name
Ballast is the weight a ship carries low in the hull so that wind and cargo don't turn her over. It is not glamorous and nobody photographs it, but it is the difference between a vessel and an accident. The numbers here are meant to do the same job for decisions.
The state of the house
Twelve instruments are live. The bench holds more — financing structures, tax-bracket packs by country, printed reckonings you can file. The methodology page carries the standing conventions and the correction log; when something changes, it changes there first.