Single node isn't going to buy you much over a basic docker-compose.yml setup, but IMHO you now have a home 'lab' to experiment and hone your skills. Helm charts, despite their flaws, when done well can be really simple and easy to install and maintain application stacks too. Just a couple CLI commands to get a selfhosted app setup with all of its dependencies like a database, ingress proxy, etc.
I find that Kubernetes is more complex than docker-compose, but still has advantages for production deployments. Things like rolling upgrades, config management, versatile services with label selectors (and readiness probes). I have been bitten multiple times by docker-compose reading a variable from my current shell environment instead of an env-file.
I'm no fan of Helm though, templating structured files just feels wrong. It clashes a lot with the built-in "valueFrom:" stuff built into Kubernetes; why couldn't Helm use similar "helmVar:" and keep being YAML?
