I ended up buying a couple of used Dell Optiplex 9010's for a little more than $100 each. Also picked up a couple of Thinkpad X220's also about a $100 each. They all run faster than my Macbook Air.
Tried all of the Linux distributions, didn't really like any of them (I hated Ubuntu and all the variants). So I installed Slackware, I use a customized FVWM (as in I hacked the source code). Removed things like PulseAudio and NetworkManager. I use a customized version of Gnustep (just the Foundation part) because I need Objective-C. And I wrote a bunch my own UI using Cairo (not a fan of GTK or Qt).
I still use MacOS on my Macbook Air, but more as an appliance and not for anything serious. I feel much more comfortable with my computer now (I am no longer dependent on Apple!)