I REALLY Need Advice About Our Domesticated, Outdoor Kitten! Have New Kitty!

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Good morning~ PLEASE bear with me, as this explanation will be long. I TOTALLY need advice from some cat people! I never grew up with cats, as I have allergies & asthma. My husband & I found a kitten (maybe five months old or so) recently. It didn't want to be picked up, but it did climb into our car with us. There was no tag, so we brought it home. I have LOTS of questions! We can NOT have the kitten inside. It's not an option at ALL because of my asthma; I'd end up in the hospital very quickly. The kitty is living on our porch. We have food, water & a small crate out there for her. (We think she's a girl, but we're not totally sure.) We always leave her crate door open. We have a couple of main concerns: 1) We don't want it to wander! We don't want it to become feral, get hit by a car or get into fights with other animals. It has overall been friendly and loving, and we want it to stay this way. 2) We want to care for it properly, but our funds are EXTREMELY limited. My husband bought it a flea/tick collar yesterday, as well as a collar with a name tag. The name tag collar was a break-away type, and she broke it away somewhere in the woods! It was expensive, too! She tried to get the flea/tick collar off and ended up with the collar stuck in her mouth and around her neck. She must have been so uncomfortable! Poor thing! She became super upset and agitated. She was scared! We tried to help her; but being so scared, she did not want us to touch her at all. She took off and didn't come home for a while. She came home briefly but ran off again until late this afternoon. (And this happened yesterday!) When she finally did come home, there were TWO other cats there with her! She hissed at them, and my husband shewed them away. I read that if we have her spayed, this might help keep her from straying away. But when she had a problem with her collars, it upset her enough to not WANT to come home! She has gotten over that to a degree--but she IS home less than she used to be! I want to have her spayed; but I don't want her to mistrust us and run away, never to return. We've thought about putting an electric fence around our porch area, extending around the bushes in front of the porch. But this is expensive, and I'm not sure how effective this is. I read you could plant catnip, lemongrass and mint in the area where you want her to stay; but I do NOT want to encourage the feral cats in the area to come around. What's the best way to keep her close to home??? This is such an important question. We live on a busy road, though our house does sit back quite a way. I'll be SOOOO upset if we ever find her out on the main road! When she wanders, she seems to go back towards the neighbors house along our little side street and doesn't seem to go out to the busy road. (We live on the corner of a busy street and a pretty quiet, little side street.) But you never know if she might go to the busy street! What do you all recommend to keep her close to the house? And how can we get her spayed without her hating us and leaving us for good? Also, we've heard that the shelters might do the spaying and some initial shots at a low rate. I'm concerned it's still going to cost a lot. Our funds are SO tight these days! If you have any suggestions as to how to keep her close to the house (on our long porch and around our bush area would be great), we'd really appreciate it! We totally want to keep the kitten safe--AND FRIENDLY! We don't want it to hang out with feral cats and imitate behaviors of feral cats! If you also have suggestions about how to keep costs down for care, we'd really appreciate that also. Finally, I'm so clueless since I've never had a cat before. If you have any other suggestions/ideas about training the kitty or relating to it in general, I'd really appreciate it. (She used to come to us when we called her but just ignores us now!) Thanks so much for your help! ~artsyfartsygal :)