Confidence comes with mileage (kilometer-age?)
Mileage comes with time
Get out there and hit some twisties on a regular basis and you'll get better
Or, if none available, hit the track regularly.
Practice is difficult--REAL practice. Repetition is not real practice. Real practice is looking at what you've done, how you do it, finding the weak link, and deliberately pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone to extend your limits. Again and again and again. Braking somewhere too early? Good...push yourself to brake 5 feet later. Not gassing it enough? Good, force yourself to roll harder on the throttle earlier. It's hard, and you could potentially fuck up. But you do it incrementally over and over and next thing you know, you can still see the guy in front of you at the end of The Snake.
If you can't afford pants go get yourself a set of MX shinguards and wear them under your jeans. You can usually get some decent leather pants on craigslist for pretty reasonable prices. God only gave you two knees.
Side note: don't be too worried about keeping up with the "fast guys". The "fast guys" inevitably have no life outside of that thing they do and do it every weekend. They're the guys that show up at the track on Friday night and leave for work on Monday morning.