Newb after opinions/advice

Gday.

Compared to most here, I know virtually nothing about bitcoin and altcoins. Every second person has different opinions and advice in various blogs and youtube vids. I know I have come late to the game, and should have been looking in to it a few years ago.

So... After playing around with, and finding the futility of mining, I have decided to buy and hold. I had a little dabble in trading, but without constant monitoring and a good knowledge, it is just gambling. (I have terrible luck whenever I gamble). I lost some (but not too much) money on SFC. I only want to put in up to an hour a week on monitoring/trading/buying.

Instead of having all my eggs in one basket, I am splitting between BTC, LTC and Doge. I purchased some BTC with a credit card on coinmama. Not sure, but I suspect you don't get great value doing it that way, and got charged $10 US for the priviledge. I then sent some over to Cryptopia.co.nz and converted to LTC and Doge via their market. Since then, I have lost some value on LTC, but gained on Doge and BTC.

As I am just a newb with no rep, how do I find people here willing to trade $ for BTC/etc? or should I stick with buying with a credit card?

Is the buy and hold strategy one likely to pay off long term?

Do people here use bots to monitor markets, or even trade with?

Do you feel my choice of BTC + LTC + Doge is a reasonable choice, or would you add/remove currencies (or try to juggle currencies on the market)?

Thanks in advance for any tips/pointers.

Cheers, Kaine.