I have two Sonos Play One’s and a Chromecast, very happy with both but looking for recommendations for a cheap alternative to use for TTS and Playing Mp3’s as an alarm clock.
Chromecast is fairly cheap at £30 but then needs an additional speaker, meaning you may as well get a Google Home Mini.
Was looking for an all in one solution and would appreciate any recommendations.
so how about a google home mini? 
i’m currently using sonos speakers but was using a couple home minis for a while.
i think many people use a speaker (wired or bluetooth like this) attached directly to an RPi. i haven’t tried it myself.
Google Home Mini?
Wait for a good offer, they keep coming every so often.
It’ll give you the chromecast bit with a speaker plus more…
Google Mini works great for general media playing and TTS. I use a couple for casting local MP3’s to for sound bites and for TTS.