So, first, you're not really starting from scratch. You've avoided a bunch of traps many people fall into, like student loans and CCs, are living below your means, and have a good emergency fund saved. Give yourself credit for what you've done right.
Second, at this point I would prioritize an IRA. I am assuming since you are a contract employee, you don't have access to a 401(k)? You need to be putting something aside as a retirement kitty. I am guessing at your income you should be well within the 15% bracket (caps out at $37,950 AGI, but you also get to knock about $10K off your gross income via one personal exemption and the standard deduction), so a Roth may be the best way to go. One benefit of the Roth is that you can take out your contributions at any time with no taxes or penalties, and you can withdraw up to $10K tax-free to buy a first home once you've held the account for 5 years. Note that in your case, I wouldn't recommend pulling anything from the account; I am a big fan of having some baseline retirement investments that are untouchable, and once you take it out, you can't put it back. But the option is there. You don't need to be fancy with this -- this is long-term money, so just put it in VTSMX or something similar.
Otherwise, I would wait until you are settled into your apartment before deciding on buying, etc. You need to know what your baseline long-term costs and lifestyle are going to be before you can really decide about taking on a mortgage and rental property and all that. So for now, I'd just start a post-tax investment account (you can do VTSMX for this as well) and sock away everything extra in there. If/when you are settled and looking to jump into the rental game, then you can start focusing on a cash kitty for a downpayment.
A couple of other quick points:
1. Bitcoin isn't an investment, it is speculation. Hang onto that only if you are completely comfortable losing it all.
2. If you're not doing it already, start tracking your expenses now. Best to get in the habit now, before things get too complicated. This is also the best way to avoid lifestyle creep -- you will notice increases right away, rather than getting to the end of the year and wondering where all your money went.
3. Realize that the habits you are building now with the new SO are the habits that you will be stuck with if the relationship lasts. Of course it's normal to try to impress someone early on and go out and do a lot of stuff; you like them, you want them to be happy, so you buy fancy dinners and give gifts and all of that totally natural stuff.* But you're also trying to figure out if this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with -- and a big part of that is seeing if you share similar expectations of the lifestyle you want to live. So if you're comfortable spending $400/mo on food, then by all means, go ahead and continue as is. But if your goal is to optimize value for money and live more frugally, start coming up with cheaper date options sooner rather than later. And if the SO isn't happy with that, then they're not the one for you.
*The first vacation I took with my now-DH, we were wandering through the shops, and every time I'd say, "oh, that's cute," he'd immediately respond "do you want me to buy it for you?" I appreciated that he wanted to make me happy, but I finally had to say "I'm just making conversation! If I want you to buy me something, I'll tell you!"