Sit tight and let the levers of house hacking + real estate investing work for you.To optimize your house-hack experience to better achieve your goals, I'd recommend pretending like you have a standard mortgage payment for your area and stuffing the savings your realizing every month into your investing account, sock drawer, or other preferred method of stashing cash. 

Even if a property is cashflow neutral, you're paying off debt at no cost.I think you might be able to earn a return of some sort, which is better than stuffing cash under your mattress, but I think you could do a lot better if you went into another market either through syndication or buying out of the area and using a property manger. 

This could be stuffed with treats and other consumables – bonus points if you source the items from local businesses that they can check out!

I have a drawer over-stuffed with purchase and finance paperwork and insurance information, but I'm wondering if any of it actually necessary to keep on hand.

It was full of mattresses and bedding and a few dolls and stuffed animals. 

It is doubtful her furnace works (vents/returns all blocked) so she is using heating sources that greatly increase fire risks in a home stuffed full of Firestarter in those trash bags. 

Bandit signs are EVERYWHERE, mailboxes are stuffed with mailers, even the radio has commercials running for wholesalers. 

When I showed up I found most of their kitchen drawers and cabinets contents still there, trashed carpets with motor oils (tracked in from working on his car in the garage), half of a 2 car garage full of trash bags, a broken window, lots of stuffed animals and art supplies, and about 150 empty 12 pack cardboard containers of Keystone Light and as many cans.

Emergency fund is stuffed up as well. 

That implies that this pessimistic gentleman is predicting an approximately 10% slowdown from our rate of increase this year.Side note: I'm a big proponent of benchmarking your returns to the S&P 500 so that you can tell if your investment was actually good, or just good relative to stuffing your cash in a mattress, so I'll throw that in too.