If you are closing on a mortgage, I understand how your life comes to a total halt until that is done, but I really would make some kind of HF rig a priority.

You've seen my rants about the Technician privileges, I'm sure. I don't think the Tech ticket is worth a bucket of lukewarm urine to most people, due to the exact thing you're saying. You always work the same people. Again and again and again... And frankly, if they are turds or they think you are a turd, you're not going to have a really nice time. You'd probably rather watch paint dry than listen to most of our repeaters these days. In most parts of the country, the repeaters are as quiet as a graveyard nearly all the time. I don't even find much using EchoLink unless I get on one of their nets. I see so many people get their ticket and make a real effort to get on the air, and then within a month or two, they are gone forever.

Some say "well maybe they found out it wasn't for them". That's correct - if it were me, I'd die of boredom so why wouldn't a newbie?

I just finished teaching a class for new Techs. I was afraid I had lost 2/3 of them when I explained what you can and can't do with a Tech ticket. This class was all female - a first for me, though lately my classes have been running almost 50/50. In this class, one of the ladies is planning a long driving trip to Alaska next summer - three months on the road. Another one is planning to buy a seagoing boat and cruise the open seas. I counseled both of them to just plan to keep going and get their General license. The biggest hope I have for them is that the one who is going boating wants to learn the code. She's scared of the General theory, so maybe she will end up as a Tech doing CW. I hope so. I think the one going to Alaska will have her General by summer. The third one just wants to do public service stuff so she'll be set with the Tech, as long as she sticks around. She lives in a town that has no repeater and is in a deep hole. Wow, that sucks.

Anyway, when you get some funds, get an HF rig that you can at least listen with. Even an FT817 will do that quite well, and there are lots of older HF rigs out there for cheap. I recommend flexibility so that you can explore whatever you want. Hopefully, your new house will not have antenna restrictions, but if it does, you can learn all about stealth antennas, or mobile operation. FT817+computer+21 foot wire out a window (and a small tuner) will make PSK and JT65 contacts all over the country, and some DX too.