I as well am holding a few Eth as their project seems very interesting.
Hopefully the price will remain stable, especially as more services continue its adoption.

Has anyone been using their contracts/coding services that they offer for anything?

I personally like the direction Ether is heading, especially that iv'e regularly been seeing news about its adoption in new markets.

It will be curious to see what the plan to do with all of their 'contracts' and other services they are beginning to provide.
Now I don't think i'd go as far to say it will be the first Crypto but its growth seems nice 

Agreed, I believe the easiest way to start, is simply to just start. However, as others have previously said patience is definitely needed.

When I started out mining on my GPU for just a few random coins here and there, I would trade those, and eventually a little would accumulate.
Also options like cloud mining can really help add up some starting base in btc or various altcoins.

I agree, ETH seems to have some interesting options to add to the table, and seeing it adopted on various sites and now exchanges is even more exciting.
We'll have to see if the interest continues, and what they can do with the contracts they are developing.

Iv'e been a long time user of coinbase as a wallet and their service has remained completely reliable.

Makes it pretty simple to store and send money, + you can make a new address (and label it) very easily.

Security is definitely important, however they offer 2 step verification and what not, but also splitting
your assets is always a good idea.

I'm considering purchasing a miner, however have heard a lot about this... However I'm not exactly sure what "it" is.

Could someone explain/point me to a thread that better explains what exactly "The halving" is?

Checking that this worked

Wallah!
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I wanted to gather a more up to date list of sites/services that people use to view and discuss the bitcoin market.

You have your sights like coinwarz, bitcoincharts, coingecko to name a few.

What are some other popular/reliable places to follow the market?

My opinion is the best possible thing is re-investing in the same market.
Such as:
Alt-Coins
Cloud Mining
Save em and sell them when price increases

As far as gambling sites go... I see a lot of people talk about them, but is anybody
actually making money off investing in them?

Split your risk

Bitcoin itself is risky business as it is ultimately a volatile market.

That being said however, there has been lots of money made by people just playing the rises and falls.

Even just through this past year it accumulated nearly $200, so btc themselves is a nice way to invest your btc.

But as previously recommended, split your risk. Take some of those btc's and maybe put them in some altcoins,
or look into mining the coins for your self. Rather that be mining equipment or cloud mining, there are many options
that will eventually yield even more btc!

When compared to most of the other cloud mining services that have come and gone, Genesis Mining has remained.

While I don't fully understand their system, I believe their lifetime contracts are still paying out, it's just that the difficulty
of mining is ever increasing... which results in lower take-ins.

For the small-time user:
If you only have a couple hundred dollars, or even less that you are looking to invest... Then such a service can be helpful.
For anyone who is paying for their electricity to mine (which for most small users this would apply), you may be spending the entire
amount you take in, not counting the base investment price.

Options
For under $100 you could get their most basic contract in each category, those being: SHA256 Mining, X11 Mining, and the somewhat
recently added Ethash mining. Not to mention the ability to change your mining allocation within each individual section.

Takeaway
While it may not be for everyone, if you are looking for a semi low risk, low investment cost place to invest, then look no further as
Genesis Mining has been reliably proving itself to not only boost the economy of the btc market, but also make continuous payments to
users where many companies like it have failed.