You seem to have almost everything under control and already planned. For the VPN I’d suggest Tailscale since it’s the easiest VPN to set up (if you don’t have a public IP). You can do a lot of things with it, but if you only want the basics, then there’s not much reading to do. Some people recommend ZeroTier, but I havent tried it, tbh.
BTW, I would keep in mind that Tailscale is planning to go IPO (if you care about that):
I don’t usually like to use specific terms to define myself, but to me it’s easier to say: “bisexual agender” than: “I don’t actually fit into the gender roles nor identities, and I also like a lot of different people, but not always. Also I sometimes feel inclined to a gender, but never enough to say ‘I’m that’”. You know, like a TL;DR.
Also, I’ve known different types of people who need definitions and certain terms:
I’m pretty sure there are more reasons, but you need to understand that external people will try to negate anything that’s not “written down”. And to add more context, there are some terms I haven’t even seen in person or known, but whatever, I respect that. I hope categorizing is not needed in the future. Unfortunately, there’s still backlash, hate and violence towards the community, with or without “weird” words, you can be targeted just because of your looks or your personality.
P.S.: some people may not need to specify their preference/identity, but that may be because theirs is seen as “normal”, that’s a whole other discussion.
Well, OP didn’t say what was their situation. I’m behind a CG-NAT so I’d need a VPS or something similar for which I’d have to pay, and I don’t have the budget right now. I understand the concern, but OP is looking to reduce the time needed to setup things.