[forty-two]

Just to clarify, are you wanting to actually run your own email server, or is that you just want your own custom email domain?

You can get your own email domain without needing to run your own server - that's what most people do, I think. I don't know the exact process, but broadly you buy a email domain from one of the domain hosts, along with email hosting (whether through the domain host or someone else), and set things up through them. I found a ton of how-to links when I searched for "how to set up a custom email domain".

If you want to actually host your own email using your own server, then you'd still need to buy a domain name, but then instead of using an email hosting service, you'd run your own server. We looked into setting up our own email server, since we are setting up our own file server anyway (and I have privacy concerns with the free accounts we have, but am not yet willing to pay for email through a company with robust privacy protection), but one issue dh noticed is that most email programs automatically assume any email from a domain whose server is on a residential line is spam - we'd have to run it on a commercial line for it to be practical.