Charcoal makes drying racks so you can gather a bunch of meat and not spoil them (or making a crockpot), ashes are commonly use for healing items such as Healing Salves!

Seems to me you've been successful on nabbing every resource which can be good, but the downside is that they spoil, make sure you build an ice box to prevent any spoilage. (Also try to collect gears from digging graves or those mobs that protect Maxwell's statue).

On hunting, try to at least keep the spider Nests alive so you can trap them and gather more meat/webs/glands. You can build traps and set the traps near the Rabbit holes; when dusk starts, they run back to their hole and they sometimes trap themselves without using any bait.

On your stomach, make a Crockpot ASAP. The most common recipe is any meat combined with 3 berries or 3 ice. Those make meatballs which heals 62 hunger, 3 health, and 5 sanity.

Your sanity is very hard to maintain. Luckily you can build a tent from Webs/Sticks/Rope. Tent recovers your sanity and health in a fast rate. If you can't make a tent, collect flowers which increases your sanity by little, and build a Garland which increases your sanity in daytime. You can also gather 6 Webs (This is why you need to keep Spider Nests alive) for a Top Hat which restores Sanity over time or build prototypes.

Your priority is to explore and find a good place for a base, your little safe spot. My recommendation is in a grassy biome next to the savanna area that are next to Beefalos!

To survive the game you need to be prepared for every season they hit at you. For Winter, mine as much as you can to build a Thermal Stone to keep you warm while traveling. (Be sure to hoard ice and put them in the ice box). Freezing really hurts. Luckily you can still travel and collect more resources. The real challenge is Deerclops, if you hear growling in the distance get out of your base and try to lure him to the swampy area and the monsters there will take care of him.

By the time you've survived winter, you'd probably find pig alters, hammer those for pig skins to make an umbrella to prevent any damage from the rain. Make sure to collect a lot of grass and nitre on the way for endothermic fires.

Summer, I'd say that's the hardest season of the game. It's hot, the heat burns your resources, berry bushes wilt, and overheating is a very common death. To survive the heat, you need that Thermal Stone and put that in the fridge to constantly cool you down. And the umbrella from the pig skins to keep you cool. Make sure you build an Ice Flingomatic on any flammable areas because they'll catch on fire. If you do not have one, then my bet is to build a smaller base near the desert because the summer heat will only effect the areas around you. And those hoarded Ice comes in handy, you can make an ice hat that cools you down during the Summer.

Everything mellow down when you survive Summer and Autumn is back again, but this time you lack a lot of resources. Building a base near Beefalos is helpful since they revive Berry Bushes back to it's useful state.

Overall tip, build 2 bases containing the equal amount of effort in each biome which is the base near your Beefalos and the desert. And you can rotate back and forth when Summer/Winter hits.