I use an older i7 laptop with ubuntu server for my main services and a pi for VPN
>CDW
thats way out of my league. I run adblock/media services throughout my house and I ended up taking up networking as a hobby.
some of the diehards run data centers out of a closet just to run plex and a few VM in proxmox
i cant justify the cost, but its really fun. I want to buy a pfsense box next as an extra layer of protection on my network.