Yep it's quite true. If you are just going to host one or two things, you could get away with a Raspberry Pi, but I have about 40+ containers running, and I realise I'm on my 3rd or 4th iteration of hardware. I don't have anything fancy as my small form-factor server cannot even mount...
I’ve never heard of anyone approaching the topic to save money. It’s either privacy/ownership or just goofing around with old hardware