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Commercial Brew Kits?
Perhaps you could move into your own equipment gradually. For example, brew with your friend's equipment, but then rack the wort into your own fermenter with your own airlock. Slowly add new pieces of equipment to your set up as you can afford it. This way, you can still brew with your friend, and at the same time show them that you are in the process of being more independent.
There are several ways to get good brewing equipment for a reasonable price. At this time a year, turkey fryers start going on sell. These make great brew kettles, especially for extract brewing. Stainless is preffered, but aluminum will work also. They are a little undersized for doing a full 5 gallon boil (where you usually actually boil 6 gallons, as some evaporates), but they can be made to work with a little experimentation on the burner output to keep the boil from going over. A used 15.5 gallon keg can be easily modified to make a brew kettle, basically just cut the top out and file it down so it isn't too sharp. You can also dril a hole to accept a ball valve at the bottom to make emptying a bit easier. If you have brew pubs in the area, they often get rid of worn out kegs, so you can check with them, they may give you one or sell if for a cheap price. You can also check with scrappers, as beer distributors do the same with their old kegs. You shouldn't get a keg that some borrowed from a store and never returned, as this keg was stolen and never paid for. The keg will allow you to do 5 gallon batches without having to worry about boil overs and allows for going to 10 gallon batches if you would like. You will need some sort of burner for this, but Amazon and other places have good prices on these. As others have mentioned, you can use pretty much any food grade bucket for a fermenter. Your local deli or supermarket deli often have these as well and will give them to you if you ask, as they are throwing them out anyway. If going this route, try to avoid a bucket that had oil in it, as the oil is hard to get rid of and will cause problems with your beer.
It's alot of fun getting to know the hops and different yeast strains and slightly changing recipes you liked but just wanted a little different taste.... Jump in what have you got to lose!?!... TheJet
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