Noob question: How do I use my ETH for DeFi if I only have a small amount in my crypto wallet?

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but I've searched everywhere and watched many youtube videos. I understand that gas fees are high in ETH and it's being addressed by the upgrades. But what if I have a small amount like 0.02 ETH. I tried stuff like UNI, AAVE etc to see if I could explore a bit more to understand the space a little better. But the gas fees to transfer ETH to these platforms was more than what I could afford to lose. I couldn't swap it on Uniswap and receive USDC for it because of the fees. If this is the case, I'll just be holding it in my wallet for a long period, which is also fine by me because I believe in the project.

TLDR: Is ETH just unusable for me to use in DeFi if I have a very small amount sitting in my wallet and don't want it to lose half its value in gas fees? Thank you