I went ahead and invested but couldn't make the trip out to St Louis in February. 

No reason to get ahead of yourself early on.

I am not in a rush, but I am eager to learn and execute.

keep doing what your doing your far ahead of 90% of all investors with 10 units.. not sure why you would spend 5k to be in a ra ra community. 

By the way your post was written it almost seemed like there was a rush to spend all of your 1M seed money in a relatively short period of time.

Instead of eating leftovers we eat hot n ready pizzas, instead of paying for a college class and doing it get ahead we buy a six pack and play madden, instead of driving our old car we buy a new one.

Honestly, get on-line and read, buy a book, or talk to a knowledgeable person and you will be further ahead.  

It would help us to understand the attainability of your goal if you would mention how many flips you have under your belt already.Assuming you are experienced, then I'd say move forward, full speed ahead--you can do it.If you are inexperienced, I would respectfully suggest you change from a $$$-oriented goal to a ### of transactions goal.Why?

If you wait until 3/15, that's another 6 weeks to wait...If you move now you will be 3 weeks ahead.

You have VA benefits to use to house hack and beyond so you want to tap into those, but don't rush the buying process, focus on learning.