Buying STEEM was one of the best decisions I made. I realize not everyone is in position to do this...

Disagree. 99% of the population is conditioned to have terrible money management skills. Buying Steem should simply be put higher on the priority list. I work 20 hours a week and I just recently broke 2000 SP.

Also, STEEM is the only token that I know that pays people to offset some of the inflation rate.

If you 100% self upvote you can negate 75% of Steem inflation dilution. I certainly wouldn't recommend that behavior but it's still allowed.

Simply adding a well thought out comment to a post with a lot of attention can get one some decent payouts.

Totally agree. When you're new, commenting is a much better way to get noticed, but you should also write posts so when people click your name they have a reason to follow you.

Thanks for the recap of your experience. I've only been here for half that time, but still much has been accomplished.