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. De 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.