Ouch that was terrible, you can do better.
Dunno about the battery cost, its usually around 200-400 here. The battery life is going to be bad, because the battery life was terrible on those days already, now its degraded. And the spares might have some degration to it, since they are old.
Yeah try to look at those llano and trinity that I mentioned. You can check ebay for some good buys.
I wish I was that cost efficient, gonna have 5 days of non stop party, Im going to be ruined, after all its paula bday, and she has to celebrate, wink wink