I Cut My AI Coding Costs by 60% — Here's the 7-Step System I Used

Chamath Palihapitiya just said his company's AI costs are trending to $10M/year. Dev Ed showed Opus 4.6 burning 100% of a session budget while GPT-5.4 used only 10% for better results. If you're using AI coding tools in 2026 and not tracking what you spend per request, you're flying blind. I'm a solo developer building two Mac apps. Last month, my AI API bill was embarrassing. This month, it's 60% lower — and I'm shipping faster. Here's exactly what changed. 1. I Started Tracking Per-Request Costs in Real Time This was the single biggest unlock. I built TokenBar — a Mac menu bar app that shows me exactly what each API request costs as it happens. Before this, I had zero visibility. I'd check my dashboard at the end of the month and wince. Seeing the cost of every request in real time changed my behavior immediately. When you watch $0.47 tick up for a simple "fix this typo" request, you start questioning your defaults. Cost: $5 one-time (yeah, I sell it — because it genuinely solved my