Concentrating on playing the game, having fun, and making a memorable character will most likely lead to a better and more enjoyable experience for you than worrying about power scaling and leveling.
That said, spend money, get blankets, as markusdark notes. In January or so, several chapters have historically done yearly passes to blanket their games at a discount to fund major purchases for the year.
Interestingly, I don't think monthly goblin blankets are in print in the Rulebook anymore. Buying the experience for events is on P149, at 30GS per day, but I can't find the monthly. For those chapters I've played, the standard has always been a single day's experience per month, only able to be applied to a character homed in that chapter, for 30GS.
One thing to consider, which is not often stated to new players, is that the majority of character power once past the early points where one is getting several build per weekend paradoxically stops being build, but but rather becomes magic items. Keep this in mind when deciding how to spend your OOG resources. At low levels you can gain build quickly enough to pick up more useful skills that way faster, but in a couple years of dedicated pursuit of power you'll be at the point where it is much easier to pick up abilities you cannot get with build via the MI system. Apply this to in-game resources as well, and be cautious about giving up ritual components or ritual scrolls for coin without ensuring that you're getting a decent deal in the local economy, because those represent the main method of power generation for more experienced characters for whom coin is only really useful as a way to buy more components, scrolls, and magic items from each other.
Something as simple as a +1 damage aura is a huge force multiplier on the right character, as that single item is the equivalent of 15 to 40 build depending on the wielder's class. Most other items aren't as obvious, but it's a lot cheaper to get 120 build worth of 'free' weapon proficiency out of a Scholar with a +3 weapon than it is for a Fighter to pick up a 120 build spell column in items.