The first salute was done away with in part because the higher-ups felt that students were feeling pressured (by themselves and/or classmates, not the staff) to buy real silver dollars (worth $35+), and when a class team graduates 60+ candidates, that's some good money. It's basically to just avoid the possibility of impropriety. Your class team will specifically tell you to NOT get them a silver dollar, and they are serious. Don't put them in that position.
The wording of the gouge is not toooo big of a deal. Point vs pointed? No big deal. But you should know it very close to verbatim. What I did was just choose one wording (i.e., pointed instead of point) and use that for all of them.
You will need some cash, but $100 would probably be fine. Just make sure you've got a debit card if you're not going to bring a ton of cash. There will be things you'll want to buy. Plus you need to get a haircut every two weeks. The cost of your uniforms is going to be around $3000 (mine was just under), but you'll get a stipend of about $1800 to cover part of it. You'll have to cover the rest.
