I recently made my first ever Steem (or for that matter cryptocurrency) withdrawal converting Steem and SBD first into Litecoin and then into South African Rand. For some reason I'd always imagined that the process would be complicated since South Africa is not exactly at the forefront of all the shiny new things, but it turned out to be pretty easy. If you'd like to see a step by step you can do so here. All in all it took about 7 hours from start to finish to convert 19.85 Steem into just shy of R2,200 after all fees and transaction costs.
What does someone who has never made a cent from writing or blogging do with their new found wealth? They buy beer of course! Using the price of one beer (R15), the Rand value of the Steem (R2,200) and the amount of Steem sold (19.85) I believe the ice cold Pilsener that I am currently enjoying cost more or less 0.13 Steem. With Steem and SBD showing no signs of slowing their increase in value all I can say is cheers!