I have recently signed up for an account with a web host on which I am running an install of Wordpress. I am the only person that will be administrating it and I would like to have secure access to the admin console. As I am the only person who will be using it I don't require a properly signed certificate and am planning to use a self signed one that I generated.
My web host wants to give me a static IP and install the certificate on their servers, both of which have a charge attached.
My question is: is it ok to use the certificate that I generated on their servers and does the setup process and charges seem normal?
I'm surprised you were able to generate a certificate at all on their servers. Anyways, I doubt it'll work. You need to configure the web server to return that SSL cert and that probably requires admin priveledges that you don't have. So when you go https://yoursite it will show their default SSL they set up on the site.
Its ok to self sign your certs using your own CA in general. There is nothing less secure about them if you know they are yours. What you pay for from a CA is their signature saying your verified and webbrowsers store that CA's cert with the default value of trust. So it doesn't bitch like a self signed one does. However, again, I doubt you can do what you are planning since it requires access to places a normal web host shouldn't have.
It is perfectly normal for most webhosts to charge for an extra IP and installation.