Ballast Finance Dashboard

Ballast

Prototype · not financial advice

You've got money left over. Now what?

Nobody struggles to spend money. They struggle with what's left. Save it? Pay down the card? Open the Roth IRA everyone keeps mentioning? Ballast does the work for you. It weighs every option against your real numbers and shows what each one is actually worth. The decision is yours to make, and the future is yours to build.

Setup takes about two minutes. You enter your figures by hand for now — connecting your bank and cards is what comes next.

Your next move

Where a spare dollar goes, in order

One month of essentials, in cash Before anything else. Without it, one car repair goes on a card at 23%.

Five more steps sit below this one. Ballast ranks them against your balances, your interest rates and your age, then puts a dollar figure on what each one is worth to you.

What makes Ballast different

Four tools, each built around a decision. All you have to do is choose.

What IfPowered by Claude

Real AI, pointed at your real money. Dream out loud in plain English — a house in three years, going back to school, the year abroad — and Claude works out what it would actually take, measured against your own figures. It is just as steady with the changes you did not choose: a car payment, a move, losing your hours. Ask follow-ups, change your mind, try something else. The conversation is wiped the moment you leave the tab, so your numbers are not left sitting on a shared computer.

Budget BuilderWhat you could aim for

Targets for the month ahead, drafted from your take-home pay — not your gross, because nobody gets to spend their gross. Adjust any line, lock the ones that cannot move, and let Ballast rebalance the rest. What you set here becomes the plan Next Move measures against.

SpendingIncluding what you never saw

Where the money went, by category and as a flow from gross pay outward. Tax and payroll deductions get their own band rather than being quietly folded into whatever was left over, because that is usually the largest single line and the one people forget.

Credit HelpLevers, not numbers

Seeing your score is free and easy. Doing something about it is neither. Ballast explains what moves it, does the utilization arithmetic on the cards you actually entered, and points you at the free, federally authorised places to read your own.

What Ballast will never do

Most money apps earn their keep somewhere you can't see it. These are the lines Ballast won't cross, however profitable crossing them would be.

Never move your moneyBallast only reads your numbers. It can't transfer, invest or spend a cent.

Never take a referral feeNo bank, broker or card company pays to be mentioned. Nothing ranks higher because someone paid.

Never sell you a productBallast might say a Roth IRA is your next step. Which company you open it with is your call.

Never link to a sales pageEvery link goes to a government agency with nothing to sell you. No sponsored anything, ever.

Never tell you what to doYou get the options, the order and the reasoning. The decision stays with you.

Never sell your dataSubscriptions pay for Ballast, so you're the customer. Your information is never the product.

Start with what you already know.

Your income, roughly what you spend, and what you owe. That is enough for Ballast to tell you what to do next.

FAQ

The ones worth asking before handing us your information.

Do I need to connect a bank account?

Not right now. You enter your income, spending, balances and debts yourself, which takes a couple of minutes. Linking accounts automatically is the next thing being built.

Where does my information live?

In this browser, on this device. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is shared. Because this is a prototype rather than a finished product, make up a password instead of reusing one you rely on elsewhere.

What does Ballast cost?

Nothing while it is a prototype. The plan is a plain subscription — no ads, no referral fees, no selling data. That is precisely why the subscription has to exist: something has to pay for it, and everything else on that list costs you more than money.

Is this financial advice?

No. Ballast explains the options, puts them in the order most planners would work through, and shows the arithmetic behind that order. It is not a licensed advisor, it does not know your full situation, and for anything complicated a real one is worth the money.

Where does the guidance come from?

The order Ballast works through is long-published, widely agreed personal-finance consensus rather than anything invented here. Further reading links out to the IRS, the SEC and the federal consumer protection bureau, and every source is named on screen.

What happens to what I type into What If?

Your question and the figures behind it go to Claude so it can write a reply. Ballast does not store the conversation, and it is wiped from the page the moment you leave the tab — so your numbers are not sitting there on a shared or borrowed computer.

Do I need to know anything about money to use it?

No, and that is rather the point. Every step says what it means in plain English, and you can open any of them to see why it sits where it does in the order.

Hi!

Total net worth

Total Assets

Total Liabilities

Accounts & Assets —

Cards & Debts —

Credit Used—

Under 30% protects your score. Under 10% helps it climb.

This month's spending

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Recurring & subscriptions

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Coming up · next 30 days

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Credit Help

How credit scores work, and what actually moves yours.

Ballast does not show you a score, on purpose. You do not have one score — you have many. They differ by bureau, by scoring model, by which loan a lender is pricing, and by the day they are pulled. Any single number an app puts in front of you is one of those, dressed up as the truth. What Ballast can do is explain what moves all of them, and point you at the free places to read your own.

What moves a credit score

FICO Score 8 weighting

The percentage on each row is how much that factor impacts a score — not how well you are doing at it. These are FICO's published weightings for the broad population, and your own profile can shift them: someone with a short credit file leans harder on length of history than these figures suggest.

Do this first

Highest payoff at the top

Where to read your own score and report

Free, from sources with nothing to sell

Your report and your score are two different things. The report is the underlying file — accounts, balances, payment history — and you are entitled to it free every week. The score is a number calculated from that file, and it usually comes free from whoever issues your credit card. Checking either one yourself is a soft inquiry and never costs you points.

Get your credit reports free, weeklyAnnualCreditReport.com — the only federally authorised source Where to get your score without payingConsumer Financial Protection Bureau What a credit score actually isConsumer Financial Protection Bureau How to build one and keep itConsumer Financial Protection Bureau Everything else on reports and scoresConsumer Financial Protection Bureau

Watch for “free score” offers that are really a subscription with a trial attached, and for educational scores, which are close to what lenders use for most people but not identical. Ballast is paid nothing by anyone listed here.

Saved

You've got money left over. Now what?

What makes Ballast different

What IfPowered by Claude

Budget BuilderWhat you could aim for

SpendingIncluding what you never saw

Credit HelpLevers, not numbers

What Ballast will never do

Start with what you already know.

FAQ

Hi!

Accounts & Assets —

Cards & Debts —

Transactions

Where the money went

Credit Help

Budget Builder

What to aim for each month Ballast’s suggestion

What If

My Goals

Settings

—

You've got money left over. Now what?

What makes Ballast different

What IfPowered by Claude

Budget BuilderWhat you could aim for

SpendingIncluding what you never saw

Credit HelpLevers, not numbers

What Ballast will never do

Start with what you already know.

FAQ

Hi!

Accounts & Assets — Account

Cards & Debts — Debt

Transactions

Where the money went

Credit Help

Budget Builder

What to aim for each month Ballast’s suggestion

What If

My Goals

Settings

Accounts & Assets —

Cards & Debts —