Well I finally sprung for and am using a VPN.  After looking at reviews on PCMag, I went with ExpressVPN, $99 for the first 15 months, money back within 30 days if not satisfied.  Easy to download and set up on my Mac.  It says I can put it on my iPhone too, so I'll do that later.  As a test, I pulled up TER on my work wireless.  Before it was blocked, but now I am here, so it seems to be working in this respect as intended.  As a second test, I just pulled up PornHub, so now I can surf porn at work if I'm so inclined.
I'm wondering if I'm really late to the game here.  If there are any other Ludites out there, I urge you to pull the trigger and pick a VPN to invest in.  It wasn't anywhere near as difficult as I'd been thinking it would be to install.

I use Private Internet Access, which is like 40-50 a year. I get both a VPN, and a proxy address. I don't use it on my phone though. The thing I like about them is that they destroy their DNS and IP logs daily so they can never be subpoenaed. I think that sets them apart from most of these services. Or at least it did when I started using them years ago.

Is this easier than purchasing a prepaid phone? You can do all the same things without registering it in your real name.

I had been using VPN’s for several endeavors and recently moved to where, a: cable is unavailable & b: only 3G or occasionally LTE are available. So I got Viasat internet and it gets really funky on my VPN’s. It leaves a lot to be desired in general. Hope Elon’s system works better if it ever becomes available to me.

I use ProtonVPN, the creators of ProtonMail, based in Switzerland.

I use Proton as well. I like their mission as a privacy first business.