The supplier pays me a commission % for the dollar amount of goods I sell to restaurants. 

WE hit it off and shortly there after we are approved for a 3 mil dollar LOC for new builds and went on to do about 8 projects together plus 5 in FLA. 

Why would you spend thousands of dollars and lose months and months of profit to do that?

For instance, should I base it on a dollar amount per hour I work on the project, either as a PM or as a guy who actually puts on the tool belt?  

Also, as Jason Hartman says, inflation helps you pay off fixed rate debt as you pay it back with "worth-less"dollars over time--basically benefiting from a non-inflation adjusted, original purchase price in the distant past.To Your Success!

Is it urgent I have to replace that retention wall which may cost thousands of dollars or can wait until that retention wall collapses completely?

If I had 100 dollars for every time I have been asked to fix something someone messed up I could build a duplex in Austin. 

They apply, but you are just subject to gift tax at that point, which does not actually result in a tax bill for you, but a reduction in your total giftable allowance which is ~13M dollars. 

(OR in another view point, real estate values stayed the same, and the dollar keeps losing value). 

However overall international tourism went down more than 50% because of the strong dollar and weaker Yen also, a lot more people from the US going to Mexico/Europe because of the affordability.