Hi, I am completely new to snake keeping and was wondering if people could help me out with where to get a ball python / enclosure requirements and such.

As far as I can tell breeders seem the way to go, but I don't have any local ones. I've looked at some that ship snakes, but the price of the snake plus the shipping cost would actually make most of the normals I found more expensive than the ones at my local petsmart. I've heard a lot of mixed things about petsmart, but this one seems to keep their animals fairly well, for a chain pet store. I've bought fish and hamsters from them before and they were all healthy (and the hamsters were very friendly and lived way longer than they were "supposed" to). I've also been looking at Craigslist and have found a few there. And there is one reptile rescue in my area that is actually shutting down but adopting out their last few reptiles before they do, I found three ball pythons on there and they're pretty cheap but I don't know about getting a rescue :/

Also, what about housing? Are plastic tubs the best? Is there any one thing that's a good balance between display + having the animal feel safe/healthy? How long do rodents freeze for? Is it better to start with a baby? Can I use newspaper and paper towels or should I use reptile carpet or woodchips or something else? And how do you transport a snake in a car? I have a lot of questions.