I agree with 2F/2F about the incident light meters, but your in-camera meter will get you close on many scenes. Incident is better, however.

As far as developing your own film, if you have a kitchen sink, you can develop your own film. Just use a small film developing tank (Patterson or stainless steel), then get some developer, stop bath and fixer and jugs to store it in and you're nearly done. You need a thermometer and then either a film changing bag for loading the film into the developing tank in daylight, or a dark closet or dark bathroom. I develop my film in the kitchen sink. When I'm done, the chemicals get poured back into storage jugs and taken back to the basement for storage.

My darkroom is in the basement but I don't have running water down there so that is why I use the kitchen sink.