I just renewed my delegation of SP from blocktrades a day ago and usually I choose to have it for 90 days but it was the first time I faltered because it costs an arm and a leg to rent SP.
I dont nearly earn in my posts to be able to cover almost 70 SBD to renew it and I don't self vote (although I don't see anything wrong with that except if you self vote yourself to 92%) although I do a lot of curation, more of votes is spread through communities that I support.
I am not complaining because it was my choice to do all of these and to run a loss on my rental of delegations because there is more to life in Steem than ROI.
One thing that I am proud for now is that I respond to all comments in my post. I get about 10-as high as 40 comments that I reply to and upvote all good comments.
Knowing the dust threshold I need to make sure that my upvote on a comment is at least 0.03 so that on payout it will still reach more than 0.02.
This is my way to reward those that take the time to read and comment on my thoughts. This is my way to try to increase their stake.
I am no whale though as I am simply a minnow who rents delegations in the hope that by paying it forward I am able to make the platform better,