I Spent $847 on AI Coding Tools Last Month Without Realizing It. Here's How I Fixed That.

Last month I checked my combined AI tool spending and nearly choked. $847. Between Claude Max ($100), Cursor Pro ($20), ChatGPT Pro ($200), and raw API calls to OpenAI and Anthropic for my side projects, the costs had quietly ballooned without me noticing. This month? $340. Same tools. Same output. Same hours coding. Here's exactly what I changed. The Core Problem: Invisible Costs AI coding tools have a unique cost problem — you can't see what anything costs in the moment. With traditional SaaS, you pay $X/month and that's it. With AI tools: API calls vary wildly based on model, context length, and output length Subscription tools like Cursor and Claude Max have rate limits you hit without warning Different models have 10-50x cost differences for similar quality output Nobody shows you the price tag before you send a request It's like grocery shopping where nothing has a price label. You just get a surprise bill at the end of the month. Fix #1: Real-Time Cost Visibility (The Big One) I