A bit of help for those who do god hopping.
Stockpile everything all the gods you plan to hit like, unless its perishable like fish. Itzpalt is the real biggie here, since staffs are extraordinarily rare compared to the rest of the items needed. For the rest, just stockpile the items as you find them. Shouldn't need to buy too much, though it is an option if you want to get a lot of favor really fast.
Pour your bonus points into Faith. I'm not sure if its even possible to train it, outside of the very rare scrolls of faith and the random faith dreams.
There are 5-6 spare alters in the world. Truce Grounds has one, Palmia has one, Noyel has one unaligned and one occasionally to Jure, the cyber dome has an extra to Mani, and the graveyard has an unaligned one as well. Those 5-6 extra alters can count for 25-30 items if you convert them with the favored item. That's halfway to the pet. Likewise, if you don't mind a bit of risk, you can burn down the alters, and they will respawn the way they were. Likewise, the Noyel alters reset every year during and after the holy festival. That means, potentially, you only need 32 favored items to get to the favor needed for a pet.