Due to this dip I’m comfortable buying my very first Ethereum soon. Where to do it?

Like the title says I'm planning to buy my first Ethereum. I have a nice sum of stable coin that's been prepared for this dip. I basically need to convert that, send it somewhere, convert it to Ethereum and stake it.

I want to know the best option on where to buy it and get it staked with as little fees as possible. I don't want to buy an ETH and end up with only .8 by the end of it. If possible I'd really like to avoid Coinbase for a plethora of reasons I don't want to get into so that's my last resort. I've avoided ETH like the plague because of it's high gas fees so I know very little about it. My most frequently used exchange is Kucoin.

Any help and insight is greatly appreciated!