Deployments are clutch for doing a bunch of reading and stashing up cash. 

@Omar Khan you wouldn't have known where to stash in those bags of money you would have made.

Got some money stashed away, fixed some smudges on my credit, and I have been reading books, listening to audiobooks, and watching the BP forums religiously for about 2 years now.So heres my plan: I live just outside of Denver.

Build your stash and educate yourself in the mean time.  

I want to buy a rental property for myself in the near future and due to inflation I don’t know if I should keep the money im saving in my saving or stash in the stock market such as the s&p 500 for the time being until I’m ready to buy a property. 

If you rent to families, I would think having a stash of kids' or family oriented board games would be convenient & cheap to add 

Option 5 - Cool my beans, stash downpayment cash, then go conventional (this would take about a year, my bullish A-type personality does not like this)Option 6 -  Just sell the dang prime residence, buy 2 in cash with the 300k, rent a bit then use VA to buy another primary residence, then use the remainder to leverage another 2.   

Stash cash for your next move.  

Properties are really expensive here- I have some small amount stashed away I'd like to use to get started (in the order of a few 10k)- I am considering two options: house hacking or short-term rental properties nearby (including NH and ME)House hacking seems hard because we do not want to move to a different area and properties are quite expensive around here.

I'm in cash stash mode for my first investment property.