Krita, Paint.net , Affinity Photo, Corel Paintshop Pro, MyPaint, corel photopaint (but corel photpaint is only included in coreldraw which is pricy application!, but still more reasonable than adobe when it comes to the price)....

I'm not an Adobe fan, but Adobe Photoshop Elements could be a cheaper alternative to the full photoshop editor for you (although limited in functionality).

I am thinking about switching to: Affinity or Corel Paintshop Pro, these both are paid but the price is very affordable compared to Adobe products. (currently using GIMP but for the life of me I can not get used to it, I am a former coreldraw user).

If you really need a free alternative, krita or paint.net might hold you over until you find something more permanent. (krita is more like corel painter, paint.net is more like gimp but gimp is far more superior in my very humble opinion compared to paint.net).

But don't get discouraged about the views of an author of an appliction. Many opensource applications are not a "one man" operations, many people with different views contribute to open source applications.

But this is all in my very humble opinion, my best advice is stick with GIMP and switch when find something that suits you.

If you are thinking about switching to a paid version, there is thing called humble-bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/ it is geared to games but they have been expanding to software, ebooks,... etc...

I got paintshop pro, corel painter and some other graphic tools for a ridiculously low price of around 25$ !!! How it works is that they have tiers, example tier1: 1$, tier2: 5$ tier3: 20$ (this is just an example, prices vary). tier1 has 3 games or applications or books, tier2 includes tier1 + 5 other items...etc... I think you get the idea.

Just create an account and subscribe to their email and maybe in the coming months (or early next year) a bundle might pop up with some graphic tools. I think the last was 2 months ago(?) so the next one will probably be in beginning of next year... I don't know...don't pin me on this...