As much as it sucks, I think you'll have to write off the money saving efforts while your snake is tiny. There is just no way you're going to be able to predict weight gain accurately enough to order in huge bulk. Experienced breeders with multiple snakes probably could, but as a beginner I would really struggle. With our first order we ordered 1 bg of rat pups (15 x 15-25g) and a bag of the next size up (15 x 30-40g), knowing fully well we might have to order another bag of the smaller size in the interim. Luckily, our snake is a fatty and that probably won't be necessary, but if for any reason she hadn't started to grow at a solid rate or had routinely refused the rats once defrosted (I won't re-freeze), we definitely would have needed more. But, I figured that some time in the next 3-4 months, we would probably reach the upper size, so it wouldn't be a waste to buy them with the first shipment.
Imo, you'll waste more money trying to guess ahead in increments of 12 weeks. Twelve weeks, at least I am finding with ours, is a very long time in baby ball python growth time. Ours has already gained 70g in 4 weeks. I would not have predicted that and if I had tried to guess what she'd need in 12 weeks time at week 1, I would have ordered way too many tiny prey items. Once you've had her for a few months, you'll probably know your own snake well enough to make an educated guess. I would track her weight using excel, and get an average per week weight gain.
EDIT: We feed her every 5 days.
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