You really can't answer the questions you have asked until you know what horse you are getting, for example some need hard feed twice a day, others manage perfectly well on forage alone. Horses do always need access to forage, you would never stable for a long period of time without providing them with hay, haylage or a hay replacer, it would be detrimental to their health. When buying a horse sometimes the seller will agree to deliver it, sometimes it will be down to you to arrange the collection, the latter being more common.
I will echo
@carthorse on not relying on friends to help out, occasionally is fine but if it's a regular thing then the relationship is put under stress and people often fall out, even the best of friends sadly.
From the questions you are asking here you don't sound equipped to take on a horse right now, in the knowledge department. See if you can volunteer to help out at a stable and learn more about day to day care and needs of different horses, before you get your own you need to really understand the horses basic needs, what goes into caring for them and also first aid/dealing with emergencies and combatting difficult behaviours (almost all new horses go through a phase of testing boundaries). Understanding the characters and different needs of different types of (non-riding school) horses should influence your decision about what type of horse to buy. For eg. (being wildly stereotypical here and I know not all are like this) a native can likely live out without rugs, eat very little hard feed, stay barefoot and be pretty chilled to deal with and ride vs a thoroughbred who would likely need stabling (and therefore hay and bedding), lots of rugs, lots of hard feed, shoes and be more difficult to handle and ride and are often injury prone, now the reason I say this is partly how much you can enjoy one vs the other but also cost, the native will probably cost half as much as the TB to keep each month! so this should be considered before you decide what horse you will buy.
Often a good first step between riding school and buying your own is to share (also known as part loan) a horse, whereby you are responsible for the horse on set days of the week, you get to care for it, ride it etc. but you have the back up of the owner making the more complex decisions and dealing with emergencies, which is a great learning opportunity. Often you pay a set amount towards the horses care for this, but it is less expensive than lessons as you don't get any professional instruction.
