One option to consider is a refurbished ex-corporate rig, (mostly dells and lenovos) you can get a whole lot of kit for 2k. I wipe the drive or re-partition it for dual boot, existing microsoft crap as optional with Linux Mint as the default, I use the Gnome/Mate flavour.

One option to consider is a refurbished ex-corporate rig, (mostly dells and lenovos) you can get a whole lot of kit for 2k.