That takes away a lot of stress. Knowing to just get started and ignore the best approach instead of just a getting started approach and learn as you go.

For the longest time I wanted to get rid if my google drive or google calendar and host one myself.

Email as I have read is something more advanced but I would like to self host my email as well.

Photos eventually too.

As a lot of people have recommended nextcloud that seems like where my interest might be heading.

As a starting point. Are there any hardware recommendations for a toy home server?