I'm making a form that requires at least one field to be filled AND all inputs have to be either integers or decimals. I'm using jquery's validation plugin to validate. I've reworked something I found [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6061515/jquery-validation-require-at-least-one-input-of-the-same-name) that seems to partially do the trick. right now I have:

```
<SCRIPT>   
jQuery.validator.addMethod("require_from_group", function(value, element, options) {
    var numberRequired = options[0];
    var selector = options[1];
    var validOrNot = $(selector, element.form).filter(function() {
         // Each field is kept if it has a value
         return $(this).val();
         // Set to true if there are enough, else to false
      }).length >= numberRequired;
    if(!$(element).data('being_validated')) {
         var fields = $(selector, element.form);
         fields.data('being_validated', true);
         fields.valid();
         fields.data('being_validated', false);
    }
    return validOrNot;
    // {0} below is the 0th item in the options field
    }, jQuery.format("Please fill out at least {0} of these fields."));

$(document).ready(function(){
    var container = $('#errorContainer');
    $("#FORMMM").validate(  {
        rules: {
            groceries: {digits: true,require_from_group: [1,".at_least_one"]},
            gas: {digits: true,require_from_group: [1,".at_least_one"]},
            hotels: {digits: true,require_from_group: [1,".at_least_one"]}

        },
        success: function(label) {  
                label.html(" ").addClass("checked"); 
        },
        errorContainer: container,
            errorLabelContainer: $("ol", container),
            wrapper: 'li',
            meta: "validate"
    });
});
</SCRIPT>

```

the HTML is below, in my actual form there are 15 input fields, I'm just condensing it for here:

```
<form action="results.php" target="_blank" id="FORMMM">

    <div style="clear:both">
    <label for="groceries">Groceries</label>
    <div style="float:right">
            $<input name="groceries" type="text" class="at_least_one idleField"></div>
    </div>
    <div style="clear:both">
        <label for="gas">Gas</label>
        <div style="float:right">
            $<input name="gas" type="text" class="at_least_one idleField">
        </div>
    </div>
    <div style="clear:both">
        <label for="hotels">Hotels</label>
        <div style="float:right">
            $<input name="hotels" type="text" class="at_least_one idleField">
        </div>
    </div>
    <div id="button">
        <input name="" type="submit" value="Calculate" class="calc_button" style="cursor:hand">
    </div>
    </form>
<div id="errorContainer">
    <h4>errors</h4>
    <ol>
    </ol>
</div>

```

Right now there are two problems with the validation. If all fields are left blank, I get 3 error messages when I only need one! 

Also, if I enter a letter into one of the inputs, I get the "digits only" error message for a second, but the form still submits anyways, since the 2nd test of having at least 1 field be filled makes up for not having digits.

Am I doing this in a totally wrong way? None of the examples I can find here or on the jquery forums seem to fit exactly. What direction should I go to solve this?