Yeah, I'm in this boat. I have a $300ish Mongoose Blackcomb that's lasted me a couple decades at this point. All I've had to do was give it new tubes and tires once
Seconding this. Especially if you're still learning and making mistakes, it's so nice to just be able to destroy a VM/CT and start over, rather then potentially breaking other things or the OS itself.
I just saw this episode the other night!