Maybe check and see if there's a herp club or anything in your area and you could split an order with someone if you don't want to store a bigger frozen order yourself. Also you can even advertise here to see if there's any other BPNetters who lives in your area that might want to go in on a frozen order so you can get bulk discounts (usually 100 prey items gets you a reduced rate per item).

As far as that mouse, I'm glad you insisted on a refund. While it might not have hurt your snake, really for the cost of one mouse I wouldn't chance it. I figure it this way, it's all the nutrition your snake is getting that week so why not make sure that nutrition is in the form of a top quality prey item. We humans eat various food items so if one isn't the best (like a run to some nasty burger joint like White Castle) we can make up for it in our other food that week. These animals have one shot at a decent meal and that mouse surely didn't qualify as decent to my way of thinking.