I just had an old laptop (like 2011 old) and just installed Debian and bitcoind in a docker container. It was a good option that didn't require me to spend any money. If you're planning to buy new hardware it will probably be much better for you.

Umbrel and start9 are super easy since they give you a nice ui, but they basically just run containers under the hood. Learning how to self host containerized services was one of my goals so that's why I did it myself instead of going with the easier software. 

 Got it! Makes sense.. yeah the only thing I have laying around is a cheap, small laptop from like 2010. It doesn’t even have a reliable power supply (shuts off if I move it basically) And I don’t want to hog space on the family Mac. So I definitely need to buy the hardware anyway. Thanks for the input!