Hi Justine,
Have you looked around for a second-hand Intel Mac? My impression is that one of the consequences of M1 is that people are selling Intel Macs relatively cheap. I have a 2018 Mac mini with an i7 processor and 32GB of RAM that I'm keeping because I don't think that I'll get much for it if I try to sell it. For your purposes, the one problem with that computer is the integrated graphics. It's best used with an external GPU, although it will handle 4K video OK. If you can find a second-hand external GPU, it doesn't take much additional graphics power to make a big difference.
I don't know anything about the South African market, but in North America I think that it's become a buyer's market for used Intel Macs, at least that appears to be the general view on MacRumors, the main Mac forum.