I faced this issue last year, when it was either buy an Intel 27in. iMac or the Mac Mini with the M1 chip. I couldn't wait, my old Mac Mini was dying.

In the end, I plumped for the iMac (I use Lightroom as well), and I am very happy with it after upgrading the memory to 64GB, and have had no problem so far with upgrades.

The Mac Mini with a decent monitor would have cost about the same, as I recall. This might not be the case on your side of The Pond.

You have more choice now, and there is no doubt that the M series chips are the Apple future: I believe some Mac OS features are already only available on the new machines, but at the end of the day it probably comes down, as ever, to how much you want to spend.

A quick google reveals this:

OS X 10 beta: Kodiak - 13 September 2000
OS X 10.0: Cheetah - 24 March 2001
OS X 10.1: Puma - 25 September 2001
OS X 10.2: Jaguar - 24 August 2002
OS X 10.3 Panther (Pinot) - 24 October 2003
OS X 10.4 Tiger (Merlot) - 29 April 2005
[OS X 10.4.4 Tiger (Chardonnay)]
OS X 10.5 Leopard (Chablis) - 26 October 2007
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - 28 August 2009
OS X 10.7 Lion (Barolo) - 20 July 2011
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (Zinfandel) - 25 July 2012
OS X 10.9 Mavericks (Cabernet) - 22 October 2013
OS X 10.10: Yosemite (Syrah) - 16 October 2014
OS X 10.11: El Capitan (Gala) - 30 September 2015
macOS 10.12: Sierra (Fuji) - 20 September 2016
macOS 10.13: High Sierra (Lobo) - 25 September 2017
macOS 10.14: Mojave (Liberty) - 24 September 2018
macOS 10.15: Catalina (Jazz) - 7 October 2019
macOS 11: Big Sur - 12 November 2020
macOS 12: Monterey - 25 October 2021.

As far as I know, the names are just for marketing purposes, it's the versions that gives the sequence.

Click on the Apple icon top right, and select About This Mac. The installed version of Mac OS is displayed. For example, mine says Monterey Version 12.2.1.

According to MacPaw (Ukrainian software house)
Click on the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.
Select Users & Groups.
Click on the padlock and type in your account password.
Choose Login Options at the bottom of the sidebar.
Click on the drop down menu next to “Automatic login” and choose your user account.
Type in your password and press Ok.
Quit System Preferences.
YMMV, depending on which version of MacOS is installed.

My good lady had the operation a few years ago---at about the time one of our neighbours had the same operation by the same surgeon. My wife diligently followed the post-op instructions, which were really painful, but she stuck with it. Our neighbour didn't. Result: My wife is walking better than she has done for years, but the neighbour is still struggling to walk anywhere without a stick.

GNUcash. Quicken without the problems (or Micro$oft).

So, we have to do the opposite in the UK?

That looks very like a Bamforth's post card. They were printed in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, near where I live.

Bamforth's were famous for these risqué jokes---the cards were mostly sold at seaside resorts in the UK. What is less well known about the company is that around the end of the 19th century, they were making more movies than Hollywood.

To add to the confusion, in the UK at least, the pronunciation differs.

The woodworking tool is pronounced "rowter", whereas the electronic device is a "rooter".

They are not completely random. Many of the ads on UHH that I see are specifically for the UK, so I would guess the provider is using your IP to pick the ads.

Try GNUcash. It's open source, and says it will import Quicken files, although I have never tried.

Try Kindle Cloud Reader---basically it's an app that runs inside the web browser of your choice. I prefer this to both the tablet app and the desktop computer app.

Us landlubbers call it a rope.

I don't think that's a lifetime commitment. I think you might find when Affinity eventually gets to V2.0 that there is a cost to the upgrade. However, if that happens, I will happily pay for it, it's one of my GoTo programs.

+1 for Vuescan. And it's not even that expensive.