To me, I just mine on my editing rig (both CPU+GPU) and take the coins to reinvest into steem power. Just using what I already have, doesn't make a lot of heat, low noise and relatively low power consumption too. It's always good for beginners to look into small scale mining using what new hardware they may already have. As a result, I never paid any fiat money directly into crypto, or i got my editing rig at a lower price, depends how you look at it 😁

Also, for those who have newer android phones out there, the simulated ETN mobile miner is something you can look into. Most powerful phones get up to $9 usd a month, without using bandwidth or a lot of battery power.