"in the case of DG - look at that debt level and maturity... I changed my mind while I was writing that to not be lazy, and looked in https://investor.dollargeneral.com/download/compan... and page 119 worries me a bit with near term debt maturity ($1.5B in <1 yr?), their current rating, and cost of refinancing."

In 2022, their cash flow was $14.34/share and they had 219,108,477 common shares outstanding. Hence, their cash flow was $3.15 billion. Also, their net income was $2.34 billion. Do you think that is not enough to cover the debt?

"When I've gone locally, the stores are pretty bad. The stores are dirty, inventory is on the ground, lines are long, employees do not seem happy, and the prices aren't even that good on a number of items."

That has been true for ages, but they still seem to make a boatload of money, which is what matters at the end of the day for the investor (not that I am in any way condoning the store environment -- they could definitely improve there). It may be for this reason that Mr. Buffett rarely visits the businesses he invests in and instead, prefers to primarily focus on financial performance (e.g., metrics such as ROE). (Mr. Buffett also considers other factors such as managerial capability but those, in some way, directly or indirectly, over a period of time, tend to show up in metrics such as ROE).

On this note, in 2022, DG's ROE was a whopping 43.6%. Valueline estimates that their ROE in the years 2026-2028 will average 43%.

Valueline also estimates that their EPS in the years 2026-2028 will average $15.80. They are not always correct but they do consider the average analyst expectations. Going by Jim's rule of thumb that if you pay 10 to 12 times expected EPS 5-10 years from now, the current price seems like a great deal.

"I also feel like I'm waiting for the entire market to go on a better sale."

If you can pull that off, that would be awesome! Personally, I'm not good at market timing, so I prefer to snatch deals when they are available without regard to the whole market.