Start your app, put Caddy issuing TLS certs in front of it, put your PC's IP behind some name on your router (maybe using something like Zeroconf), and spend the $19 buying some flowers for your partner.
$19 would be a business expense so I don’t think buying my partner flowers with it would go down well.
In a professional context time is money. Setting up everything you’re discussing takes time and would need tweaking every time my network changes (not to mention require router access). $19 a year is a rounding error in terms of developer expenses. It’s entirely legitimate to pay for a tool to just do it for you.
mDNS is proper standards name for what used to be called Zeroconf. This app is doing the same thing you'd do by hand, it's just saving you time by automating it. If it only takes you an hour to setup by hand, is your time less valuable than $19/hour?