With respect, private money is not a commodity item like a book or laptop that you can buy online, and perhaps enjoy the protection of a credit card.

The information available is amazing, but also very overwhelming and I am not sure where to start.I'm currently in some credit card and student loan debt and looking for advice on whether it's smarter to get more in debt to be able to start with flipping/house hacking sooner, or to continue to read for the year and a half to two years or more it will take me to get rid of my debt and save enough for a down payment.  

I'm not sure if I can do anything beyond call a heating company which I imagine has an opinion ab what I order.Eric,    When I get a new to me property i will generally do the work myself, everyone is afraid of it, but its really quite simple if you have experience with advanced home projects, I just applied to be an HVAC Contractor in WI so i can pull the permits and sign the yellow cards,  crazy part is in WI there is no experience or education requirement to be a Heating contractor, Just pay the state for a credential.   

I was listening to one of the BP podcasts the other day, it was with Tom Krol, I believe but I might be wrong, and I loved his advice that if someone told you that they had taken one of your family members hostage and you had to get a deal under contract within 72 hours, you probably wouldn't spend your time worrying about getting your website perfect or how your business cards looked.  

. $3400, maybe take out cash advance on my credit cards $2500, and do a cash out refinance to get the equity out of my house. 

However, they will calculate a new DTI (debit to income ratio) based on the new monthly payments from your cash out refi or HELOC loan.Some quick pros and cons about Cash out Refi vsHELOCCash out Pros-tax free money-low interest rate-no monthly payments Cash out Cons-closing costs (couple thousand)HELOC Pros-tax free -its a line of credit, hence you can use pay back then use again-usually NO closing costsHeloc Cons-higher interest rate-have to make monthly payments on money borrowedHope this helps,CB

Write your letters / post cards to answer those questions.

Is there any advice on what to do next and how to play my cards right?

My credit is good, but not "excellent" because of lack of credit and new accounts open in the form of credit cards, which I did to build credit. haha I do have 3 bad mark on my credit from when I was 19, that will be going off of my report in a year, thank God.

My wife does not work and we have a good amount of "stupid" debt (credit cards/hospital bills/student loans) and not very much in savings and fair credit.