minimal transaction for gandi.net I'm registering with a few different bitcoin sites.  I notice that, at least according to older questions, paypal isn't generally accepted.

Is there a simple way to buy a few US dollars worth of bitcoins?  The purpose is to register a domain with gandi who have a $10 min for paypal.  Some domains are quite inexpensive:  .pw is less than one dollar.

Or, would I simply end up paying more in transaction fees and time than its worth?  For security and volatility, alone, I don't want to hold on to bitcoin.
It's best to read through the steps detailed on www.bitcoin.org, they also link to a list of exchanges. A lot of exchanges will require ID verification which may be more hassle than you're willing to go through. But some exchanges do not for smaller amounts. Or you might try to find an Bitcoin-ATM near you.

Exchange and transaction fees will likely be lower than PayPal. And you may lose or gain a bit of value over any Bitcoin leftover in your wallet. Since price fluctuates, you probably want to buy a little more bitcoins than you really need, to make sure you can fully pay the domain name.