A safe place to buy small amounts of cryptocurrency

I only need a little, maybe $20-$50 of crypto. I tried it a couple months ago using best wallet, it was an unpleasant experience.

I had about $40 there, and the program froze up. After I deleted and reinstalled it, the money wasn’t there.

I was never able to find what happened. Is this experience normal with cryptocurrency?

As I said, I only need a little, but I don’t just want it to disappear.