This! Good advice! I went this path last year so i can give some extra advice for everyone who wants to start:

Before doing anything, buy a new router and put your iot devices and phones in a isolated guest network. Maintain the router updated. After that, you can work, learn and test without fear. Everything stays in your home.

Then like @webghost0101@sopuli.xyz already said, once you get confident, you can run a vpn tunnel to access your lan. This setup is pretty robust, hard to fuck up, and doable even for newbies. (If i can do it, everyone can, i assure you). Lots of guides out there.

Last advice, which you should already be doing, but setup a backup.