Make 60 str/10 dex/10 int character, or 59/10/11, if you want it to be able to recall (good for alt).
If you want healing on your template, start with 50 healing. Otherwise, the only worthy picks for a combat character are 50 magery and 50 resist (or 50 tradeskill for a crafter).
It is a good idea to make a classic warrior with healing as a first character.
Since you cant gain resist spells skill in town now, it will be very handy to macro cross-heal your training mage. It is a good moneymaking/fighting machine, as well.
2) Rise stats using skills, that cost no/very little gold.
Bank your posessions. Do not buy any skills from NPC for now.
Use snooping (on NPC) to rise your DEX. Buy a magic wizard hat (10gp) in a mage shop, set a macro that puts in on and off (check forums for details). You will gain meditation (and INT) and can possibly train healing as well, since your HP will take a small damage when you put it off. Use arms lore on your dagger to gain STR, use anatomy on town NPCs.
Lock your INT at 25. Do not forget to train some hiding, it will be handy.
Bandages are basically free if you pick and process cotton or shear sheep for wool.
Scavenge everything you find on the floor, sell it to right NPCs, help keep Britannia clean
When you get like 60 anatomy and 60 healing, its time to go bash some animals outside for weapon skill gains. Use your main weapon, as well as newbie dagger, club (buy or find one), and bare fists. Use any kind of shields to rise parry. Heal with bandages and run. You will drop all unwanted skills later. You will get more and more STAT. Just do not rise herding, leave it locked at 0.0 for now.
3) Now maximize STAT.
When you get to 700 skills, buy a herding crook (20gp?), lock all your skills, unlock and point up herding (it will stay exactly at 0.0) and go herd any animal (like a cat) in some confied space. You will get to 100 STR/DEX in about an hour. Point down now all unwanted skills.
Now your character should be 100/100/25, with enough healing ready to hit some zombies.
Avoid for this time PVP hot spots, like Brittain Graveyard. But well, if you got PKed and even dry-looted, that wont hurt you at all. Your main treasure - your stats and skills cant be taken from you. I hope you bank often, and never carry all your posessions on you.
4) Check vendors for better weapons
Travel by moongate system, check vendor houses there. Do not forget Moonglow area and Vesper strip (east exit). Do not spend money on armor, bone armor should do well for now (it is as good as shop-bought platemail), just replace it with fresh drops. An exceptional weapon will cost you less than 200 gold, which will pay off rather fast.
Hit a graveyard in Jhelom, kill skels and zombies, loot them dry, sell to blacksmith/armorer/jeweller. Bank often. To kill that shades, get a friend, or hire a fighter NPC (100gp), near Jhelom fighting pit. It will obey pet commands, as "all kill" and "all stay". Park it few screens afar (or it will run and aggro full graveyard), run to it when you have hard times, and use its help. You can as well heal him.
When you get to 80ish skills, its time for earth elementals/ogre-like humanoids.
5) The End
This can quickly grow to and endless wall of text, so let me end there.
There is a bard/musicmanship way as well.
All theese ways are better, than a newbie mage, running circles around West Brittain Bank and begging for gold "to buy reagents to hunt".
