At the moment I have a loose backup plan where in addition to a local backup, I FTP my more vital documents to a secure directory on my web hosting. The problem is that I don't do it nearly as often ...

OK - built a mate a SME-server, that was/is great for a mate - easily setup for email - works out of the box virtually, web and ftp server. Backup job also easily done via a cron job to sd ...