I built my main desktop computer for less than $300 USD. It has an Intel Core i5-4690K CPU, 16GB of DDR3 RAM clocked at 1600MHz, an RX 470 graphics card, and several hard drives that I got for cheap. The case that I have is a Thermaltake Versa H21. It was fairly cheap and has plenty of room for expansion. My main PC does everything I need it to do, so I have no reason to upgrade (yet). Despite the fact that the CPU and GPU are around a decade old, they still perform quite well. I have Linux Mint installed on my main PC.
I have a couple other desktop computers. One is a Dell Optiplex 9020 which has an Intel Core i5-4590 processor, 16GB of DDR3 RAM clocked at 1600MHz, and a 256GB SATA SSD. I use that computer to mine Monero. The other desktop I have is a Windows XP computer that I built using spare parts. It has an LGA 775 motherboard and a GTX 650 graphics card. Sometimes I'll boot it up to play some old vidya.
The main laptop I use is a ThinkPad X280. I got it used on eBay for $100. It has a 7th gen i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD, USB-C charging, decent port selection, and good enough battery life. The screen is 1366x768, which isn't a deal breaker for me, but something worth noting. There's basically zero upgradability with this laptop. It lacks an ethernet port which is annoying. The X280 is pretty snappy thanks to the fairly modern processor, and it can handle all the things I do on a laptop. I'd recommend getting the T480 instead of the X280 because it has a higher screen resolution, replaceable battery, and an ethernet port. This laptop is quiet most of the time. The fan only spins up if you have too much stuff open at once (several tabs in a couple different browsers + a couple other programs open). For the price, I'm happy with the ThinkPad X280. I have Linux Mint installed on my laptop.
I currently have a Google Pixel 7. I would not own this phone if I didn't get it for free. It's alright. I cannot flash my own custom rom on it due to the phone being OEM locked, which is annoying. It also doesn't have a headphone jack. I don't really use my phone enough to care about the cons. That said, I'd get some cheap android phone that I can put a custom rom onto if I didn't get this phone for free. If you're going to buy a Google Pixel, buy one that is OEM unlocked and buy the "a" series of Google Pixel phones. They are much cheaper without sacrificing too much.
Typically I try to use FOSS software as much as possible. The software I use might not be perfect but it works for me.
For school I use the Brave browser. It's basically Google Chrome, just without all the Google spyware. I don't really have any issues with it as of now. For everything else I use Librewolf. I don't really have any major issues with it either, but I wouldn't recommend it to normies. It's great for privacy-oriented people. Most web browsers suck but I've found that Librewolf and Brave are the most tolerable.
I've used several Linux distibutions the past few years. I've settled on Linux Mint. It "just works" for me right out of the box. I don't have to do any major customization after re-installing my OS. I started using Ubuntu in 2022, and Mint later that year. I did try out a few other distro's but kept coming back to Mint. Really any Linux distro is fine, just find one you like.
qBittorrent. I tried using Transmission. It sucks. qBittorrent is great.
I recently started using Mullvad VPN. It only costs ~$5 USD/mo. You can pay using cryptocurrency, which is very nice (You even get a 10% discount for paying with crypto). You don't have to give them your email or anything, you're just given an account number when you create an account. If someone somehow finds your account number, you're in trouble. Mullvad is great but do your own research when choosing a VPN. I route pretty much all of my Internet traffic through a VPN. I trust some random VPN company more than an American ISP.
I just use VLC for almost everything. It does the job. Rhythmbox comes pre-installed with Linux Mint so I use that as my music player. It's pretty good.
HandBrake - Great piece of software that allows you to compress video files.
K3b - FOSS CD/DVD burning software. I have nothing else to say about K3b. It works great for burning stuff to optical media if you need to do that on Linux. Nuff' said.
Steam - Popular digital video game distribution service. Most games work great on Linux nowadays, although I'd avoid using Steam if possible. It is the best out of any other video game distribution service though.
OBS Studio - A FOSS way to record or stream. You've probably heard of OBS before so I'm not going to shill it too hard. It gets more and more bloated with each new update which is very annoying.
YT-DLP - A great tool primarily used to download YouTube videos, although a lot of other websites work with YT-DLP. One of the best pieces of software out there.
Stacher7 - A frontend GUI for YT-DLP. Easily allows you to choose which quality you want to download a video in, if you'd like to use cookies from your browser, etc. If the command line scares you, Stacher7 is fantastic.
Tor browser - Good for privacy schizos. Bad for seething feds.
LibreOffice - The FOSS alternative to Microsoft office.
Minetest - An open-source version of Minecraft. If you're a complete autist and you want to play Minecraft but you refuse to use software that isn't FOSS, this is a decent enough alternative.
Monero GUI Wallet - Monero (XMR) is truly a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency. The Monero GUI Wallet has plenty of features and even allows you to mine XMR directly from the wallet if you enable advanced features.