If I’m not using my own node and am conducting transaction on electrum wallet either using the mobile or the desktop wallet is my location exposed to which ever node that’s it’s connected to since am not running my own node?, I’m asking because I can’t recall ever using any VPN to access my wallet and I don’t know how say that is, well I don’t have much to even be afraid of as I don’t hold much and their is not point of me being afraid of privacy breach.
Yes your location is exposed, if you’re only concerned about IP then use Tor and not VPN because with VPN you’re still trusting a third party and they can still get your IP. As for running your own node it is for best for anonymity sake this way you don’t need to depend on other other nodes for blockchain information as the public node you’re connected to might be feeding you with wrong information. Another reason why you should run a bitcoin node is because you’re helping the network to be more decentralized: more node runners more decentralization we have.
It is also worth mentioning that running your own bitcoin node doesn’t mean your wallet is automatically save it is far from that, your wallet safety depends on how safe or secure your seed phrase or private key is. That’s why the best form of storage is cold storage where the seed phrase never comes online.