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How would you go about creating a model for something like this?

firstly, the odd oval-ish shape.

secondly, the flat rim part outlining the top circular shape.

I was messing with an oval-ish cone shape as a cut out, but its just not working so well, I'm relatively new.

Please advise on the HOW, I don't want it done for me. Thank you

The more geometry you have, the more places you have to make the form uneven, so it makes sense to go with the minimum amount of geometry you can have to still keep the form at the beginning. Subsurf modifier seems fit for modeling this kind of form, also solidify will make things a little bit simpler:

Note that if you use solidify, you have Crease controls so you can make the rim edges sharper. You may even want to use full crease of 1 for both Inner and Outer properties of the modifier with less subdivisions, then Bevel modifier controlled by edge angle to have more control over them and one final Subsurf to add the needed smoothness for overall form.

In the GIF I am using active element as the pivot point for transform operations. It can be set in the Header of the 3D View. You can see me deselecting some selected vertex and then selecting it again to make it the active element as well:

You can use a modifier-based approach.

Start from a plane, and use mostly extrude E and transformations (I've worked mostly in Edge select mode, extruding the left,right,back edges and not the front edge, that I have extruded separately only at the end).

See here the wireframe:

The smooth mesh was obtained using a Subdivision Surface, a Solidify and a Bevel modifier:

Since the model is less thick on the top, the Solidify modifier makes use of a Vertex Group where the bottom vertices are Assign-ed for 100%, while the top ones only for 30%. Subdivision Surface smooths out these values: