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):
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.