First of all I took a look back at my spending for the past half year to get a good idea of ways I could optimize it.

Optimizing that growing dowry/downpayment can be shifting all excess funds to a high-yield money market account, or a CD. 

You are both competing against financial advisor networks that want people to put money on Wall Street or in some crapola product to optimize their commission.

Is it optimal? 

Everything is optimized for remote monitoring these days - I even learned about some cool phone app-operated mouse traps in another thread I posted.

This isn't a mandatory step and it's more of an optimization later on down the road.The best thing to do when starting out is to just analyze deals.

This method is called Home Equity Optimization.  

I'm happy to contribute as well, I'm a great resource for website questions, particularly those involving Wordpress and SEO (search engine optimization).

Sure that's a great place to get interested in Real Estate but REMEMBER, they are production artists that make more money of their merchandise with inflated optimism.2- They go with where the best PRICE is rather than the best value.

I'm always happy to offer my own advice too, though as it stands, unless you need advice on experimental design or assay optimization I don't know how useful my advice will be. lolBest,Matt