When I first came to Steemit a little less than two months ago, it was quickly clear that I was going to want to buy in. I knew that I didn't understand the platform, but I knew enough to figure out that there was going to be value here if I put in the effort to gain the understanding. About that time I also discovered the idea of leasing delegation, and the @minnowbooster market to do that.

I really liked the STEEM:BTC price at the time, so it seemed like a good plan to buy in. I did not, however, just want to show up as a brand new dolphin with no idea what to do with his voting power. I had a very good sense of how much I did not understand about voting on the platform, and I really wanted my account to grow in stages so that I would have an easier time figuring it out without learning my lessons by rampaging over community standards. So I chose to sell six delegations with varying lengths, in hopes that as the voting power came back I would find good uses for it. I spent six weeks as a minnow, which I think was really important for my understanding of the community.

<div class="pull-right">https://steemitimages.com/DQmcCSYHKXae4ehaLbwgYB36uKtAT2Kmc5rzEYZCqQJWrdF/votingpower.jpg<br><br><sup><center>my voting power from <a href="http://www.steemworld.org">steemworld.org</a></center></sup></div>On Sunday the first chunk of delegation came back to me, and with this week's price increases, I now have a vote worth $0.20 in <a href="https://steemit.com/stemit/@tcpolymath/the-mathematics-of-steem-explaining-vote-value">Vote Value</a>. As expected, I had some ideas of what to do with it: I'm <a href="https://steemit.com/music/@tcpolymath/unofficial-bonus-prizes-for-original-songs-in-open-mic-week-81">supporting songwriters</a> in <a href="https://steemit.com/openmic/@luzcypher/steemit-open-mic-week-82-record-your-performance-and-win-steem-sponsored-by-pfunk-and-luzcypher">Open Mic</a>, working to build the <a href="https://steemit.com/steemit-webcomics/@cobmaximus/steemit-webcomics-funny-comic-strip-contest-week-12-win-sbd-and-have-fun">Webcomics Contest</a>, and actively curating the #printmaking and #letterpress tags, not that the last ones have been much work. 
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I'm also giving out votes to reward content that I really like, mostly in arts-related activities. My estimation right now is that I'm spending about half of my voting power on rewarding the rest of the community and about half on selfish pursuits - voting my own posts, rewarding good comments on my posts, trying to launch @zerocloo's poker blog, and upvoting accounts like @qurator and @steembasicincome which will give me a return. 
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I'm not particularly thrilled with that percentage, and I have two methods planned to reduce it. One is that, as more of the delegation returns, a lot of the selfish uses will not grow as fast as the voting power does. The second is that I expect some of them will become completely unnecessary as I balance out my need for liquid rewards vs. SP, which should be just a few weeks away. On the other hand, hopefully the rewarding quality comments on my posts component will grow significantly.
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I'm having moments when it's hard to find posts I want to spend voting power on. Because of the way I'm doing the Open Mic bonus prizes all of those votes go out on the weekend, so I expected it to be slow midweek, and it has been. Evaluating accounts for the Minnowbooster whitelist has led me to a bunch of good posters, but the nature of it means they're less likely to be high-volume. My hope is that as things go on my feed will become a continual source of content that I want to upvote for its own sake. 
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About half of my SP delegation now is either on week-to-week renewals or expiring on Sunday. So far I've been content to let the renewals go and collect liquid STEEM, but I do have the flexibility to increase my voting power if it turns out that I find a good use for it. So I'm feeling pretty good about where I am. I turned out to be right about the STEEM:BTC price, as I bought in at its highest point recently, leaving me with a nice return just in currency rates. And the longer I'm here the more I think that the platform can be an investment asset for me while I'm being an asset for the community.