Even if you are holding the cash on the sidelines while you look for a deal, you still are better having access to the cash instead of having a fat balance sheet.

I’ll put them on the back burner for now..

I listened and put that idea on the back burner. 

And it's fair, it's a very minute thing and a complete fat tails scenario.

Save the money for a year or two and start looking for a "fat pitch."

My hope is that all the soccer moms (and dads) go out of business and I can get their 6 deals a year too.For everyone that goes out of business someone replaces them.. its takes a big fat economic recession to winnow the licensed agent pool. 

By “gas stove” do you mean a free-standing stove, kind of like a wood burner, or are you just talking about a furnace?

We're seeing pricing vary drastically even just going 20 miles south of the city just because everyone is so "fat and happy" with work.

Trim away as much fat as possible (like trading down in automobile if at all possible), stop dumping money into the 401k for a while, and try combining your desires to buy your own place and invest in real estate by "house hacking," where you live in one of the units of a multiplex while renting the others.

What could make a deadbeat hillbilly happier that sitting on their fat butt; smoking a cigarette; working on a case of Bud; all of the while watching their 120 inch big screen TV - ALL PAID FOR BY THE TAXPAYERS?