I use Claude Code daily — here's how I cut my API bill to $2/month

I use Claude Code daily — here's how I cut my API bill to $2/month The .claude/ folder is having a moment on Hacker News right now. Hundreds of developers are comparing their Claude Code configurations, sharing hooks, and debugging workflows. And almost none of them are talking about the bill. The quiet cost of Claude Code Claude Code uses Anthropic's API directly. Every message, every file read, every tool call — it's all tokens. If you're building anything non-trivial, you're looking at $20-50/month in API costs without even trying. Most developers don't track this until they get the bill. # Check your actual Claude API spend curl https://api.anthropic.com/v1/usage \ -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY " \ -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" What I did instead I run my Claude API access through a proxy that caps my spend at $2/month. Here's the full setup: # Instead of hitting Anthropic directly: export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL = "https://api.simplylouie.com/v1" export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = "yo