So you did take up my advice to pick up Persona 3 Portable after all. Good.
Persona 4, being built on the same gameplay principles as Persona 3 and its remake, also requires grinding to some extent. The extra cash comes in very handy when you do constant fusing and resummoning of Personas. Even though you get diminishing returns on XP gains, even a little XP is better than nothing.
I never really had to worry about charging that damn fox for recharging my party's SP, though. Back when still had to make use of the fox's services, I usually made enough money per run to make a tiny profit after paying him. Once I got my hands on some Mage's Marks and a few Personas with the Invigorate ability (Succubus, where would I be without you?), I never had to use his services again. It also helps that the basic elemental attacks like Garu, Agi, and Mabufu are still useful well into the mid-game if all you want to do is knock down your enemies to prepare for an All-Out Attack. At this point, I'm pretty much waiting on Himiko (soon to be Kanzeon once I max out Rise's Social Link) to learn Relaxing Wave so I can get about to spamming -dyne spells with true impunity.
As for HP, let me put it this way: When you're a good 10-15 levels above the highest-level monsters in the latest dungeon you've unlocked, you're practically untouchable. The only things I have to worry about at this point are making sure that the main character, Chie, and Kanji don't kill themselves through repeated applications of Rampage, Kill Rush, and other physical skills; judicious application of Diarama and Mediarama renders that a moot point, however, especially given that I don't have to worry about SP either.
