There maybe other factors that you did not disclose to your plan on the BP forums but it seems you have quit a job in hopes that the pressure of no income will cause you to succeed in REI.

Many landlords will tell you that making it fixed will cause them to run up the bill, but this never happened to me.If you are building from scratch, I bet you can purchase a gauge for each line that you could manually read usage from once a month.

I want to gauge if anyone would be interested in an unaffiliated FB Group page to post deals, talk shop, ask/give advice, etc.

Sit at home with a 12 gauge shotgun.

FInally, a topic not mentioned in this thread, is the pressure applied by the hedge fund buyers.  

Soil Mechanics Lateral earth pressure Soil consolidation Effective and total stresses Bearing capacity Foundation settlement Slope stabilityStructural Mechanics Dead, live, wind, seismic, snow, rain, ice, impact loadsearth pressure and surcharge loadload combination and tributary areasBending, Shear , Axial Forcestorsion, buckling, fatigue, progressive collapse, thermal deformationCombined stresses Deflection Types of System: trusses, braces, and frames and its DOF (degrees of freedom)Types of Foundation: retaining walls, footings, slabs, mats, piers, piles, caissons, drilled shafts.. etc.

Not signing in person removes the car salesman high pressure environment and it seems to work nicely. 

The challenge when you are taking money from someone else partnership or loan, they are always more involved than they said they would be and you will feel a pressure to answer to them.

Plus its common to have contingencies and not go hard on deposits.. these wholesaling JERKS who ask for this just try to put pressure on buyers when no pressure is needed..  

As for drinking out of a fire hose - anyone can do that - just turn the pressure way down low until it drips out at the pressure you feel is appropriate to drink from.