Capital Cluster B — Scarcity Triage
Poverty Trap Exit-Map
Four calculators for the week when cash is shorter than the month.
When money runs out before the bills do, the choices compress. Bio-Fuel Efficiency ranks groceries by calories per dollar so survival is cheap. Bill Triage prioritizes which payment gets the last dollar. Trap Detector exposes the true APR on payday and pawn loans before you sign. Vimes Utility Threshold calculates whether the cheap boots are actually cheaper over five years — the boots-theory tax made explicit.
Start here
- Bill Triage — Which bill gets the last dollar this week.
- Trap Detector — True APR on any pawn or payday loan before you sign.
- Bio-Fuel Efficiency — Calories per dollar — ranked.
- Vimes Utility — Cheap replacements vs one good pair — over five years.
Tools in this cluster
Bio-Fuel
Rank food by kilocalories per dollar and convert grocery spend into days of biological uptime at a 2,000 kcal baseline.
Bill Triage
When you can't pay everything, which bill first? Weighted ranking by service-cutoff risk and late-fee pain.
Trap Detector
Compute the true APR of a payday loan, pawn redemption, or cash advance — with a predatory heatmap from fair to extortionate.
Vimes Utility
Boots-theory math: cheap-vs-quality cost per day over a 5-year horizon, with an injustice-gap total.
Curated guides
- Bio-FuelRice 1,333 kcal/$. Ready-meal 88 kcal/$. Ratio: 15×.
- Bill TriageScore = (essential level × 10) + (late fee ÷ amount × 100). Service cutoff dominates.
- Trap DetectorA $15 fee on $100 for 14 days is 391% APR — about 13× a credit card.
- Vimes Utility$30 boots × 15 replacements = $450. $180 boots × 1 = $180.
Other capital clusters
- Cluster A — Strategic CapitalSolopreneur Health CheckCan the side-hustle carry the salary yet? Run the four numbers that decide.
- Cluster C — Operational ScalingDeveloper Efficiency AuditFour calculators that separate infrastructure cost from infrastructure theatre.
- Cluster D — Biological MaintenanceExistential Maintenance LogFour calculators for the costs that don't show up on the bank statement.
Frequently asked questions
› Are these tools judging cheap food or loans?
No. They expose the math so the user can decide with full information. The output is a number, not advice.
› Is the APR the Trap Detector shows the same as the stated APR? Trust & accuracy
No — stated APR is often hidden behind fees and short repayment windows. The Trap Detector annualizes the total cost, which is usually several times the headline rate for sub-$500 loans.