The best advice that I can give you is to stay away from the morphs that look like normals to you - they typically aren't good examples of that morph.
There are plenty of single gene morphs available for a GREAT price - butter/lesser, cinnamon, enchi, fire, mojave, pastel, pinstripe, spider, spotnose, vanilla, yellow belly, etc, etc, etc... Good example of these morphs look NOTHING like a normal ball python, and with their powers combined produce many stunning multi-gene animals. Unless it jumps off the page in a lightbulb type moment, just keep looking. I've seen some pastels on here that look better than multi-gene animals because they are screamer examples of what a pastel should look like. Those are the kind of animals that you need in your collection. Great parents = great babies.
Play around A TON on both the WOBP Genetic Wizard (http://www.worldofballpythons.com/wizard/) and the OWAL Genetics Calculator (http://www.owalreptiles.com/genetics.php) and do virtual pairings. Then, search for the results on Kingsnake (http://market.kingsnake.com/index.php?cat=32) or FaunaClassifieds (http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...play.php?f=499) and see if any of the combinations are within your price range. If they are, then congrats! You're one step closer to an even more diverse collection! If not, then congrats! You're one step closer to determining which base morphs you need to produce that combination!
Something else that helped me first starting out were Colin Weaver's articles on breeding from the business side of things (like this one - http://ballpythonbreeder.com/2012/02...thon-breeders/). Not necessarily from the standpoint that I want to turn this hobby into a business, but to help myself make purchase decisions that make the most sense for my breeding plans in the future.
Last, and certainly not least, keep doing exactly what you're doing! This forum is a living, breathing creature full of people around the world that spend way more time thinking about snakes than anyone really wants to know about (if you don't believe me, check out the recent "For giggles, where are you right this second?" thread - http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ht-this-second). Ask a lot of questions - get a lot of answers.
Welcome to the forums!
Eric
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