save your money, and just do this...

skin->bind->smooth bind->option box

set the settings to the following...

Bind to = Complete Skeleton
Bind Method = Closest Joint
Max Influence 3
Drop Rate 4.0

then click on bind skin

Then what you want to do is check the joints deformations. Most likely the joints will influence more then what is expected. For example, if you rotate the elbow, it might also pick up some of the vertices of the leg and also rotate them as well. How to fix this is you want to use the paint skin weights tool. For more info, it is all covered in the help file. Just look up Paint Skin Weights.