I wish I read your article first.
I started off with a few cloud mining contracts.
Than went on to mine a single gpu, cpu
then built a rig.
and finally just brought direct from an exchange.
While I cannt say Im making a loss . If did this in the reverse order i would have made more money or if I just exchanged in the begining i would be even more profitable.
There are a few tactics though that will improve your return;
if a coin goes up in value fast 25% plus in a day then mining and exchange the coin for a top 20 coin will give you a good return. Currently ETC is a good example of this.
if a coin corrects(top 50 coins only) its a good time to buy and hold for 3 to 6 months at least.
If you are seeing a big rise in difficulty then its a good time to buy.
Also beware of pump and dumper! normally they will be talking up a coin but will except donations in the top 4 coins only.
Well hindsight is a b****h!
I've been buying bitcoin and ethereum via Coinbase, and then using Coinnseed to supplament that with small and automatic investiments. While it's not going to make me rich, I've decided I think that mining is not for me. Especially because I love my technology, and being unable to read print at all due to a visual impairment from birth, mining upon anything I own and care for would be a stupid thing for me to do. At least in my case; when a computer dies, I take them down hard; seems to take a part of me with it; the part of me that is attached to the device.