Thanks for the help/advice. I have one ally (75K power) who can get my teams thru all the 80 stamina event levels for now so it's all good.
And I don't whale...well..not anymore after I learned my lesson on an MMO I blew $15K+ on that closed suddenly after 5 years...soo..yea there's that
I'll do maybe $30 worth of gold occasionally but nothing like I used to.