It's not exactly a cheap VPS, it's a server with 376 gb of ram my dad bought on ebay, put on co-location, and I help to administer it, and can create some VMs on it. But some of the things I do on these VMs are in principle similar to what I would do a $5 vps:

- irssi running in screen (irc client, yes, occasionally I still talk to people on there)

- my very small imgur-inspired image hosting (https://github.com/deniska/imghost)

- miniflux (RSS client, I am trying to get into a habit of reading RSS feeds instead of letting the algorithm to decide what I read)

- git directory with bare repos I use as remotes over ssh. I also have gitea installed, but I don't really see the appeal if I'm the sole user of a repo.

- snikket, xmpp server with a whatsapp-esque mobile app, useful to talk to people who are behind the great Russian firewall

- llama.cpp serving gemma4-26b-a4b for image processing of things too sensitive to let openai and other similar companies to see it (ok, this on won't fit on a $10 vps)

- minecraft server for this once a year 2-week minecraft phase