We're glad to have you back. I think folks are just trying to be helpful, not necessarily realizing that you live the reality on a daily basis.

I manage the infrastructure for my global organization and, trust me, I would LOVE to be able to use some of the cloud services for a lot of things, but cannot for various reasons. However, we do use AWS for some simple items and I have been amazed at how cheap it is. My bill from AWS (which is AMAZINGLY redundant and easy to use) is about $12/mo. You could POC it quite easily and get a sense for your potential costs. I only second this suggestion as you may be able to make life easier and perhaps make those small AD contributions go further.

Best of luck and glad you got back up and running. I was going through withdrawal!