Welcome to Steemit! Anybody who has the guts to put their life savings into Steemit attracts my attention. I hope you will not regret that decision; yes, the Steem price is low right now so it's a good time to buy, but there's no guarantee we are at the bottom yet. I believe it will rise in the long-term, but you might have gotten more bang for your buck by cost-averaging in slowly over a month or two.
Regarding your question, others have already provided a lot of good information on this. I would only add that I wish posts could continue paying out indefinitely, with payout periods maybe once a week or so. I'm not very knowledgeable on the technical aspects of how the Steem blockchain is implemented, so I can't guess about the feasibility of this idea, but I think the devs are aware of the community's desire so we might see something done about it in the future.
Enjoy your time here, and hope you will be a responsible dolphin!
Yeah, I obviously should have waited because I could have received twice as much STEEM!
Oh well, look on the bright side: now it's twice as easy to buy even more Steem! Anyway, I expect it will pay off in the long run, and with so much Steem Power you ought to be able to earn some nice curation rewards.