Here are the key spells in each rank, with some caveats (some are only important in certain situations). As Crug said, getting money to buy all your spells is easy if you spend a little time farming. Just wander around The Feerrott and kill froglok tads, lizardmen, and decaying skeletons and you'll have money in no time. That being said, if you want to spend your money on other things (a full suit of banded and some kind of cheap weapon from EC is recommended for meleeing) or don't feel like farming, here is the list:
Level 1: Burst of flame, cure disease (get this once you start fighting zombies), inner fire (this is a more efficient heal than minor healing), strengthen
Level 5: Cure poison (or just avoid fighting spiders and snakes), frost rift, gate, sicken. Can avoid Drowsy since the first couple of slows you get are pretty weak and are not really worth the mana.
Level 9: Light healing, spirit of wolf, spirit of bear, tainted breath
Level 14: Bind affinity, enduring breath, levitate, root, spirit of snake (will save you money buying/selling), spirit strike. Again can avoid walking sleep, another slow.
Level 19: Affliction, cancel magic (you'll need this at some point but probably not at level 19), healing, malaise, shrink (once you start going into indoor dungeons), spirit strength.
You have a few options for leveling. One is to find a group and be a healer/buffer/nuker. They may ask you to slow but it's not worth your mana in the early levels because it's low % slow; the powerful slows come later. Ask people in your current zone to group, or head to popular locations like south ro, north ro, east commonlands, and guk. You should be friendly with ogres and dark elves if you need to go to Oggok or Neriak. Otherwise, pre level 9, you will be meleeing and nuking mobs solo; from 9 through 13 you can do the same or you can SoW kite (cast your two dots on the mob while keeping your distance so it can't hit you); from 14 on you can root-dot. Experiment with different methods and see what works for you.
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