I Thought I Had an AI Bill Problem. I Actually Had 7 Workflow Leaks.

If your AI spend feels random, this is for you. I’m a solo builder and I kept saying: “models are too expensive now.” Reality: my workflow was leaking money. Same with focus. I kept saying: “I just need more discipline.” Reality: my feeds were stealing deep-work windows. Here are the 7 leaks I fixed. 1) The “open 20 files and pray” loop I used to dump huge context into Claude/Cursor/Codex, then rerun prompts when output was vague. That burned tokens fast. Fix: scope each request to 1 small task send only files needed for that task kill reruns unless I changed context 2) No session-level budget I had monthly spend in mind, but no per-session guardrail. Fix: set a hard session budget before starting track token/cost in real-time (I use TokenBar in my Mac menu bar) stop when budget hits and rewrite prompt instead of brute forcing 3) Treating retries like progress Retries felt productive. They weren’t. Fix: if output is off twice, rewrite constraints and acceptance criteria “what should th