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Dollar Llama is a personal finance blog written by a family office professional with 16 years of experience. No products to sell, no affiliate links, no sponsored posts. If you’re new here, start with the path that matches what you actually want.
Skip to the Real Estate Calculator
A free tool that analyzes any residential deal across Buy & Hold, BRRRR, and Flip simultaneously. 10-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis, Excel and PDF export. No account required, your inputs stay on your device.
Launch the Calculator →The mindset shifts that separate real investors from people who are just moving money around. Start with the boring truth, then work your way through the frameworks the financial industry would rather you not use.
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Investing
Good Investing Is Boring. That’s the Point.
Start here. The foundational idea behind everything else on this site: process beats prediction, and compounding rewards the patient more than the clever.
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Investing
Are You an Allocator or an Investor? The Difference Changes Everything.
The financial industry makes you an allocator by default. Understanding what that means, and what the alternative looks like, will change how you think about building wealth.
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Investing
Active vs. Passive: The Distinction Wall Street Doesn’t Want You to Make
The debate you know is only half the story. There’s a second distinction the industry never talks about, because it threatens the entire business model.
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Investing
What Good Advisors Actually Do
The best advisors rarely talk about investment returns in the first meeting. Here’s the checklist for evaluating whether the person managing your money is earning their fee.
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Written by an active investor who owns rentals and has done buy-and-hold, BRRRR, and flips. Start with the first principles, then work up to deal mechanics and tax strategy. When you’re ready to run your own numbers, the calculator is waiting.
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Real Estate
Are Real Estate Agents Worth the Commission?
Start here if you’re thinking about buying or selling. A licensed broker who has never earned a commission breaks down what agents actually do and whether the fee makes sense.
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Real Estate
Buy & Hold vs. BRRRR vs. Flip: Which Strategy Is Right for You?
Three strategies, one property. How to think about which approach fits your situation, with real stories from the field and a decision framework that goes beyond the usual pros-and-cons list.
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Real Estate
Cost Segregation and Capital Recycling: The Tax Strategy That Accelerates Everything
How cost segregation studies accelerate depreciation, recycle capital, and help real estate investors build portfolios faster. The same strategy institutional funds use on every acquisition.
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Learn
Then explore the Learn section
Cap rate, cash-on-cash return, IRR, and how to analyze a BRRRR deal step by step. The building blocks of real estate investing, explained without the jargon.
Browse the guides →
For readers who want the structural view. These posts are less about what to do on Monday morning and more about understanding the forces that shape portfolios, policies, and the financial industry itself.
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Investing
Why Germans Save, Americans Buy Stocks, and the Chinese Bought Apartments
Policy shapes culture, culture shapes portfolios. How structural economic changes across Germany, China, and the US make the case for diversification without making any predictions.
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Investing
Training for the Race You’re Actually In
Your portfolio exists to fund your life, not to beat an index. On aging into your goals, the gap that stings, and knowing when to push harder.
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Investing
The 20-Fund Portfolio: How Your Advisor Built You an Expensive Index
If your portfolio has 15 to 30 mutual funds, you might be paying for something that isn’t doing what you think. Includes a side-by-side comparison with a 3-ETF portfolio.
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Investing
Where Are All the Investors’ Sports Teams?
Professional sports ownership has become the ultimate trophy for private equity founders. How the fee machine works, what carried interest really pays, and what it means as PE pushes into 401(k) plans.
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