I kept running into the same problem: I could feel the model costs drifting, but I did not have a clean way to see it while I was working.
That is why I built TokenBar.
It sits in the menu bar and makes token usage feel immediate instead of mysterious. For me, the point is not obsessing over every cent. It is removing the little bit of guesswork that turns into wasted time and surprise invoices.
The bigger lesson has been simple: if something is important, make it visible where the decision happens.
That idea showed up again when I started working on Monk Mode. The problem there was not knowledge, it was attention. I did not need more motivation, I needed fewer traps.
Solo dev life is mostly this: notice the friction, build the smallest thing that removes it, and ship it before your brain invents a prettier excuse.
If you are building with AI and you are still surprised by your costs, you probably need less dashboards and more surface area.
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