What are your favourite, or least favourite but necessary, cost-cutting methods?

I feel I am spending too many resources on unnecessary stuff.

Edit: I feel the need to reduce both – the resources, to host multiple things on one system, and cost, to buy/pay for multiple systems. Currently, I have 2 ARM VPSes and 1 old MacBook Air as a home server.

  • morras@links.hackliberty.orgEnglish
    1·
    2 年前

    Cost-cutting is corporate-greed mindset, therefore you have to solve it with the same mindset.

    Fire people ! Even you if needed. And let the end-users deal with the outcome.

    (This is not a serious post ^^ )

  • Anafroj@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    2 年前

    My favorite cost cutting tip is to avoid big webapps running on docker, and instead do with small UNIX utilities (cron instead of a calendar, text files instead of note taking app, rsync instead of a filehosting dropbox-like app, simple static webserver for file sharing, etc). This allows me to run my server on a simple Raspberry Pi, with less than 500mb of used RAM in average, and mininal energy consumption. So, total cost of the setup:

    • Raspberry Pi : 77€ x 2 = 144€ (I bought two to have a backup if the first one fails)
    • MicroSD 64gb : 13€ x 2 = 26€ (main and backup)
    • average energy consumption : 0.41€ (2kWh) per month

    With that, I run all services I need on a single machine, and I have a backup plan for recovery of both hardware and software.

    Getting used to a UNIX shell and to UNIX philosophy can take some time, but it’s very rewarding in making everything more simple (thus more efficient).

    • lud@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 年前

      cron instead of a calendar

      What do you mean by that?

      Do you use crontab to save events?

      • Anafroj@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        2 年前

        Basically, yes. You can configure most cron programs to mail task output to you (it’s usually done by setting the MAILTO variable in the crontab, provided sendmail is available on your system).

        I use that to do things like:

        0 9 11 10 * echo 'lunch with John Doe at 12:20'

        It sends me a mail, and I can see the upcoming events with crontab -l. If it’s not a recurring event, I then delete the rule.

        • krash@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          2 年前

          And to expand further on simplicity, one can avoid using email and send messages over ntfy with just a POST curl call.

          I like your setup!

        • TheHolm@aussie.zoneEnglish
          1·
          2 年前

          Damn, I’m doing *nixes for nearly 30 years. But never went to that level of minimalism. Nice trick.

  • SomeBoyo@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    2 年前

    Fasting allows you to waste less money on food and invest more money into your server.

    • urshanabi [he/they]@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      1·
      2 年前

      When I was younger, I’d save my lunch money for weeks to buy a game and fast during school. I’d do my best to fill my stomach with as much water as I could.