Personally I would not buy Steem right now, I believe the market cap right now is too high and that there will be a correction within the next couple of days/weeks/months.
You can google things like 'steem value' or 'steem marketcap' or 'steem trends' to get a better birds-eye view of what is going on with the currency at any given time.
I bought into bitcoin when it was around $10/$20 per, then unfortunately had to sell to pay for my daughter's medical bills when it was valued at around $200 per. I never bought back in, figuring it was just something i did for a little while and when it hit $3,000 per a few days ago i almost cried. I would have been so rich!
What I am hoping for 'and expecting' is that Steem is going to correct and go back down to at least a 100 Million market cap (right now it's over 400 Million, yesterday it was 550 Million, 2 months ago it was around 50 Million).
When it hits 100 Million (or below) is when I plan to buy, and buy as many as my wife will let me which probably isn't much.
Regarding how easy it is to trade back to bitcoin, it's VERY easy to trade Steem and Steem Dollars into bitcoin on the various exchanges. Steem power however you can NOT trade, you must first power-down the steem-power into steem or steem dollars.
I see absolutely no reason why you should use an exchange rather than buying steem right here unless for some reason you can get it at a reduced rate on some exchange which happens from time to time.
Hope my answer helped! I noticed you followed me based on my comment on another one of your posts. I'm going to follow you back, and of course here's your upvote. :) Happy Hunting!
@sasha.shade this was the best answer I've gotten to any of my posts. I really appreciate you taking the time to give me your thoughts. I think I am going to take your advice. I got into ltc during the last dip and think I made the right move. I'm in the same boat, I can only spend as much as my wife allows. lol. Thanks again for the great reply.