I have a similar thing going on with my parents. I am a student, had some bad personal issues, took care of them and once I refound my love of snakes have been absolutely awesome in backing my breeding plans. My parents are kinda on the wealthy side, but for example I needed a new rack and they were generous enough to front me the money to pay for a ARS 7030 which I am loving by the way. They have also paid for a lot of my snakes, and I plan to pay them back in full for the rack (it ended up being 2400 shipped, I've paid down 1k so far, and I am getting a job at school so that should be done in a few months). I am also going to give them a cut of what I sell from my first batch of hatchlings if I am lucky and good enough to breed and incubate them properly. I've been devouring tons and tons of info on all sorts of husbandry and breeding and incubating issues so I hope I get some success this season.

But yeah, except for the rack I have a more informal agreement with my parents. They were just happy that I finally found something I was passionate about, it helped get me out of my funk and I am back on track taking classes to get in to nursing school
(I already got a damn BA, but I am only going to need one year of classes before I can apply to actual nursing school; and I also had two years of law school before I dropped out [my god did I hate law school] and a nice chunk of student loan debt from the latter heh).


But I think the best thing in your situation would be to just front him the money for the snake. Partial ownership of a living creature (and hell, a lot of non-living things as well) can be the cause of some bad blood which you don't want to risk with a friend. So help him as much as you can, talk his ear off with what you know, but keep your resources separate. But say a breeding loan or stud service may be a better thing for you guys down the road. Thats much less likely to backfire.