[altairiumblue]

She really doesn't need to spend on anything. All of the good beginner resources are free:

- Hands on programming with R - https://rstudio-education.github.io/hopr/ - Teaches basic programming concepts like working with variables, if-else statements, loops etc in R. If your friend doesn't have a technical background, this is a good place to start.

- R for Data Science - https://r4ds.had.co.nz/ - Teaches you to work with the most commonly used libraries for manipulating and visualising data.

- Introduction to Statistical Learning with R - http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ISLR%20Seventh%20Printing... - A great place to start with some of the theory. If she has a background in statistics, it should be quite accessible.

- Caret package site - http://topepo.github.io/caret/index.html - shows how to use one of the popular packages for machine learning.