upgrading os on MacBook Pro

I have a 2017 MacBook Pro running on Big Sur 11.6.5. It does what I need it to. My desktop is a very well upgraded 2013 that Apple has discontinued support for, and is more rapidly becoming an otherwise powerful paperweight since the majority of the programs I run are subscription base with no real option to purchase the programs outright. Microsoft has forced me into bringing my PC from my last job back to life so I can continue to use their cloud and office programs seamlessly since they have discontinued their support on that machine as well. All that said, I am not in a financial position to take the plunge on a new MacBook Pro for the next 6-12 months, but I absolutely NEED to get back to seamless operation. I am considering grabbing an external drive and a usbc hub to power my additional monitors and settle into the 1 computer idea for the next year. It runs "ok" as long as I don't have everything open at once, but I do notice the 8gb mem vs the 16gb on the rest of my systems from time to time. All that said, if I make this move, I am almost positive I am going to have to upgrade the OS within a short period of committing. My question is, can a 7 year old 8gb laptop with a dual core processor handle the new stuff that's out today (macOS Ventura and the app updates that come with it)? Additionally, I only have 128gb on this one. This computer was never intended to be more than a road computer to handle simple stuff on the fly, but I seem to have been forced to face the consequences of intentionally missing the "spend thousands every year to upgrade to the next best word processor machine" boat. Main programs I run: Photoshop, Audition, Word, Acrobat, Excel, A couple low draw pro audio apps, and Apple Music. Does anyone have a similar scenario? Did you upgrade? Was it worth it?