Hi everyone,

I'm a grad, just venturing into freelance journalism to support myself.

Main reason for posting is that my parents aren't hugely financially literate, and have no experience with freelancing, so would love advice from you wise, beautiful people here as to how to set up good habits to build up my... well, financial life.

I've just moved to a new city and rent is £425 - with bills that should be around £500. At this early stage, I'm currently earning around £600-800 a month freelance, dipping into a bit of savings that I ferreted away from uni low-income bursaries if I really need to. I anticipate that figure of earnings will increase as I establish more contacts etc. But it's a good start.

As far as I'm aware, the personal income allowance is £12,500pa and I won't be taxed on my earnings unless I exceed that figure. Unless something goes VERY right in my career, I'm unlikely to hit that level anytime soon. That said, I'm still very worried about being hit with some kind of surprise horrible tax bill that isn't warranted.

I'm still on my old undergrad bank account, looking at switching to grad/current accounts. I have also set up Monzo to help track my expenditure (I'm relatively frugal but would like to be able to have the odd treat now and then, especially with friends in London).

I also have a H2B ISA. While it does what it says on the tin, I use it primarily as a savings account (for the bursary money I mentioned above). There is £700ish in there currently, after I withdrew £1500 to cover first month's rent and deposit. I want to start building that back up once my income increases, but for these first few months of re-establishing contacts, I feel that's not quite viable just yet.

As a final thing, I'm aware I have no credit history currently. I would love to get a credit card and start buying small things with it and paying them back quickly to build up a positive score, but again, I feel that might be more medium to long term right now.

Any advice, warnings or tips would be hugely appreciated. I know freelancing can be a nightmare for tax/credit/mortgage etc, and I have a bit of a mania for financial responsibility after my parents made some... interesting... decisions when I was a kid, so I really want to set myself up with good practice at this early stage.

Thank you all so much in advance for your help! <3

NB: I'm unlikely to remain a freelancer forever, but certainly for the foreseeable future.