Welcome, Gally, it's nice to meet you! ^^
I was just like you a few months ago - previously on and off neo but once I found clraik all my goals seem obtainable now and theres more interest to play neo. Especially customization! I was never into it before but now that I know where to get everything it inspired me to make a few dream looks for my pets/goals. I really recommend "dressed to impress", or DTI, if you haven't had a look already - it allows you to customize and save your pets looks and make wishlists of the items you need. I was surprised that there are quite a few nice neopoint items in terms of backgrounds and foregrounds, they were a nice starting point for me! (you need an account to see links)
You can also sort by neopoint-only if you don't have much of NC items. After playing around on dti and making my wishlist I was surprised at how many nice looking items were in the range of 1-5$ here on ck. So take your time and have a look! There were quite a few NC things released since I was last on neo so at first it was a bit overwhelming. I just started with looking at all the backgrounds first, then foregrounds, then eyes, etc...