Don't forget to take into account the market prices of sbd and steem when powering up. You often can get more steempower from a 50/50 reward and converting your sbd to steem to then power it up instead of a direct 100% power up reward.
And I also like to use https://steemnow.com/@paced.financial for seeing my voting power since it gives me an estimate of my voting strength by percent. Helps me both manage my voting power and see how much power I have left.
Yes the internal market is a great tool but requires a little more knowledge than the first time user has. I love steemnow it is simple but does what it is supposed to! I actually just wrote this up last week (already expired so do not up vote the post it would just be a waste of your VP): https://steemit.com/steemit/@bigdeej/the-on-blockchain-zero-fee-secure-internal-steem-sbd-market-most-people-never-knew-existed
Was thinking more like using blocktrades instead of the internal market. Be a little fee but still make out better to power up and is fairly simple.
The problem with blocktrades vs the internal market is you don't get to set your price. Blocktrades and others are great for swapping to/from other coins into the steem world, but I feel like the ability to not have to trust anyone with your coins at any point while also setting the price you want is a huge benefit for the internal market.