I'm wondering if people are always buying in at the max for their ring games?

Typically i have not, due mostly to me having a small $50 starting bankroll(that usually hovers between $35-55) and not wanting to buy in at $10 for the .01/.02 games. However since stack size is important in NLHE, here is the strategy I've used.

What has been working well for me is scouting the tables and finding ones where people have bought in for below the max, somewhere around $2-$4. An added benefit is that these types of tables are usually not full tables yet, so you can get the benefits of a shorthanded game.

Then I look for the biggest stack. Typically I'll buy in for the his stack size rounded up to the nearest dollar. For example, big stack has $2.65, so I buy in for $3. I don't want people to be able to bully for all my money, but I'm not yet comfortable with sitting down at a full table with 1/5 of my bankroll.