Transitioning From Exchanges to Personal Wallets. Know Anything About It?

A little backstory: Today I was locked out of Poloniex…

Screen Shot 2017-06-09 at 9.52.45 AM.png

…and all of us know that even if/when it is resolved we never know when things like this will pop up again. A coin we could be watching to sell or buy with a momentary rise or fall could be a huge opportunity missed or even costly (see @sirwinchester
story: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@sirwinchester/poloniex-under-pressure).

I get it. Poloniex is probably having growing pains, and I hope they make it through it. But being locked out of my account and having some of my wallets disabled has prompted me to seek out alternatives, which brings me to why I am writing to the Steemit Community for advice (hi guys!).

So…I don't know where to begin with decentralized trading. I have been trading on a few popular exchanges for a couple of weeks, but would like to start using personal wallets.

My first and only attempt so far to use a non-exchange has been through EtherDelta. I brought a small amount of BTC in from Poloniex for a test to buy an altcoin and I am glad that I only did a test first. BTW, this test was initiated 4 days ago (June 5, 2017).

I got my information (wallet & key) when I deposited my BTC in EtherDelta and when I changed it to ETH, but after I put my bid in for an altcoin I had no idea where my purchase went.

EtherDelta made sure that I was sending off my bid with enough “gas” before proceeding, so I do not think it is a case where there wasn’t enough gas.

I have the transfer info opened on Etherscan and it has information for the following categories (not sure what information I should post publicly so I have just provided the categories):

OVERVIEW:

"TxHash"
"Height"
"TimeStamp"
"From"
"To: Contract"
"Value"
"Gas Price"
"Ether Gas Used By Txn"
"Actual Tx Cost/Fee"
"Ether"
"Cumulative Gas Used"
"Nonce "
"Input Data"

EVENT LOGS:

“Address”
“Topics”
“Data”

EtherDelta didn't generate a new wallet for this altcoin purchase as it did when I deposited my BTC and switched it to ETH so I am guessing it is in limbo out there somewhere...

Any suggestions on how to find and secure my purchased altcoin on EtherDelta/ Etherscan and put it in a wallet?

I have been checking out some Youtube videos, scanning Reddit, etc. To be honest, I know it is not impossible to learn and it will take time, it is just new and quite daunting at the moment. I would be happy to hear what has worked for you when you were starting out, and of course what to avoid. Thanks in advance on behalf of all the newbies around the world!