That's what I want to do as well, Pis running a vpn and some wake-on-lan scripts for a couple of old boxes (I will probably run SmartOS on those). Anything to share about your setup ? (blogs/gits that you wrote or followed)
I also got some cloud credits from my employer, but a bit paranoïd about putting my data there (although most of it isn't sensitive).
No links but it’s just a Pi5 as a Linux router and three Pi4s for grafana (iot stuff), jellyfin and hosting my blog on solar power.
If you’re thinking about rpi5, reconsider an n100 minipc. Rpi5 is surprisingly expensive, both upfront and tco.
I wrote a HN hit about something similar
https://louwrentius.com/the-raspberry-pi-5-is-no-match-for-a...