Cooking woes

I know that it's still cheap next to the other crafts, but it still hurts to look at my tally sheet and see that I've spent 115k getting Tav's cooking from 11 to 68.  It hurts even more knowing that it's partially incomplete, as I haven't tracked everything that Tam has picked up and mailed along the way.

While some recipes along the way have been money bleeds, the majority of my expense has been crystals.  And crystals.  And more crystals.  And, oh yeah, I'm out of crystals again, need more crystals.  Having explorer moogles has made getting to the various regional vendors pretty easy, but has probably also been a small unnecessary drain on my finances at 300 gil a pop.  I've also had to overreach my abilities a few times and rely on image support, which also starts to add up.

I'm at a point where nothing seems to give skill-ups.  I know that if I'm 5 points out, I'm not going to get skill-ups from failure.  I'm fine with that.  But can I please get maybe 0.1 from every, say, 5 successes?  Even that would be frustrating, but much faster than what's happening now, and I may not have to resort to setting the locals on fire!  (Which also failed to produce skill-ups.  Can't say I didn't try.)

Also, how do Rarab Meatballs justify their expense and skill level?  Talk about some food that needs to get over itself!  I'm not sure if I'm amused by the fact that their HQ is a Bunny Ball or not.  Well, okay, who am I trying to kid?  Of course I'm amused by it.  I'm just not entirely sure why, or how much.  Bunny Ball.  Ahahahaahahaaaa.

Anyway.

My aim is to get to the 75 or 80 neighborhood today, but that isn't going to happen if I'm sitting here blogging!  Now go away, I have stuff to do!