pls help - want to get personal email name, but I'm confused!

[twillup]

The more I look online, the more confused I'm getting!

I have a hotmail account that I've used for years. But I need to get a better name for some freelance work (ie more professional looking than hotmail or gmail). I am solo, so one account is fine, I don't need a website at this stage and I won't be mass mailing 100s or anything.
I would like to be able to hook it up to my hotmail (can I do this as an alias or would I need to set up some sort of forwarding with a new email?)
Do I need to pay to get the name and then pay for email hosting? Or is there a one stop shop for that? What is the absolute cheapest way to do it?
If I am only sending a few emails using the new email I really need to make sure sure i can forward to hotmail in case I forget to look at it later on.

I can't be the only person who finds this confusing! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I use 1&1 - they maintain my own domain and that gets me 100 emails (at least) you can set up autoforwarding on some or all so you could set up email addresses for 1 business to forward to gmail, a personal set just for you and a few junk ones you never look at.

I've never bothered with the website though for the basic price they do host a website for you and if required can build you an eshop.

As well as forwarding you can use an email client (I use Thunderbird) Outlook and Edge also work or you can log on to their sire and look at emails there.

They have a deal on at the moment 12 months at 99 pence a month, usual charge is £4.99.

www.1and1.co.uk/hosting-windows

I've used them for at least 10 years now with no problem.

Thanks - I will have a look at them now. I'm just aware of costs - I'm thinking if you sign up with someone you're kind of stuck with their prices for ever?

No the domain name is yours so you can keep that and move email providers. In the last 10 years 1&1 raised their charges once. They try to sell you various tools from time to time and I currently use their backup, cache and defragmenting tools but no need to buy them.

Raidhost are also good 😊

As CD says, buying your own domain name is the way to go. You usually get access to a control panel with your domain and you can set it to auto forward all your email to whatever free you like.