$11/m is a lot. If you just want a small site on shared hosting, try namecrane.com. For storage use Hetzner Storage Box.

I used proxmox and have played a little with nix and guix, but simplest is just use debian, put /home on a separate logical partition from the system partition so you can reinstall the system without clobbering user files, and as people keep saying, backup early and often.

Simplest is use /etc/hosts to set up names, if there are just a few.

Ada would like a word with you ;)