Steemit, Long Ramp-Up Time if you are new to Cryptocurrencies

As part of my intention to contribute to the community, I have some funds lying around that I want to invest as Steem Power.

I have no prior experience with Cryptocurrency and my goodness it is taking a lot of hoops to try and get my money into the circulation. Who knew!?!?....

It's 4 days here, 3 days there - getting a wallet and then trying to buy bitcoin because it's hard to just buy Steem directly and then verifying the bank account and the limits (which are abysmal compared to what I had in mind to invest) and then request for ID to increase amounts - but no indication of what the new limit will be. It's crazy. I've spent the better part of two weeks...and at each turn hoping I can finally acquire the crypto currency I want but still nothing can be done yet.

Oh well, I guess it's all safety and security measure...and I get it. But I really thought I'd be all set by now.

Also having trouble setting up my steemit.chat account - at first it wouldn't register me and the verification link didn't work - then tried a to set it up again and it said that email was already used - so I did password reset and it won't accept anything as a new password - just says error in resetting password. If anyone has run into this or has any tips, that would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, thanks for reading - hope this proves helpful for others who do not already own cryptocurrency and wanted to jump in :)