From personal experience I was in the same place years ago and didn't really have the extra bucks to pay for proper lessons and partly something inside me tells me I'd feel better if I did it on my own
(didn't turn out as well as I thought it would be haha)
I started playing acoustic guitar tunes for the chix at first
then I saw a guy shred in a battle of the bands in my town and thought I'd want to be as fast as him
Ultimate-Guitar has been my source of learning, not music theory though. I was just learning songs that I like until the dawn of Youtube and got hooked to those theory lessons by Joe Satriani, chromatic exercises for finger strength and then the scales, modes, etc although I later abandoned this because I felt like I wasn't progressing and it feels like I don't know the direction I was going to or if I actually wanted to be a shredder
But one lesson from Satriani which has helped me a lot is the horizontal and vertical growth in playing, the more songs, riffs, licks you learn the longer you progress in the X axis (horizontally) and the more you learn about theory attributes to your vertical growth (Y axis)
What I'm trying to say is try to balance your guitar practice time between theory and learning songs. Learning songs will keep you interested and give purpose to all the theory that you'll learn.
Also, have a guitar hero or heroes who you will try to emulate. You can try to be a carbon copy of them, draw inspiration from them but at the very least having them will give you a guide on your guitar learning path.
Fast forward to now, I wish I had known blues way earlier so I could have spent more time learning songs of the 3 Kings, Hendrix, Buddy Guy, SRV, Clapton and other blues players so that I could spend time learning more jazzy stuff now.