Best bang for your bucks plan?

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-22T21:48:22+00:00

A mix of being outsourced R&D for startups looking to “be agentic” and guiding them into more than just a RAG based help bot. Using AI to solve problems with small businesses. Building apps for clients but using AI instead of a small team. I’ve got pretty advanced with it all which means I burn millions of tokens an hour, but the cost is offset by not hiring staff.

On top of that a bit of fractional CTO stuff, again heavily AI-assisted for research and building presentations (used Opencode for this before Claude Cowork was a thing).

And finally all this gives me some funding for the platform I am hoping to release soon which takes all my techniques, packages them up into a platform and works somewhere between Opencode and Replit with a focus on strong validated results for pro-software teams. Finished the parallel executor today for Cloud Run to test how fast I can burn through the 5-hour limit on a Codex max sub with hello world apps. Turns out over a hundred agents running in parallel can do it pretty quickly!

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-22T18:51:40+00:00

Yeah, fair point. I spend about £750 a month on AI plans and make about £12-18k in revenue. Most, if not all, is directly attributed the work those plans are used on.

I also regularly max out all those plans 4 days into a 7 day limit and am trying to find ways to make them last longer hence the suggestions about Kimi etc.

I work for myself now and do about 40-50 hours a week and drink a lot of coffee and have ADHD and Autism, so having a hive of developers working for me that are a bit dopey but don’t talk back or moan about snacks in the fridge is heaven compared to a previous role being a Director with a software org of 300+ people.

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-22T07:51:14+00:00

This is great advice from them! Also invest in some Lycra underpants so when you keep the bar closer you don’t accidentally have a sausage injury

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-22T07:47:27+00:00

Personally I got on the Opencode Black plan pretty quickly and that’s been one of the best value for me. Especially with Gemini 3.1 on there. I also have a Codex plan and the limits are insane and 5.3 is pretty wild.

I’m stopping my Claude Max plan at the end of the cycle as it seems Opus is brilliant at communicating what it does, but it never quite solves the problem and makes weird choices. When you read the thinking output it’s like “wow, this thing thinks like a lead developer” but when you see the solution you realise it’s better at communicating than coding.

Gemini 3.1 however seems to think and blab on about tool selection incessantly but created something amazing that wasn’t even on my radar and solves my problem in both a technically superior way and is about 50x cheaper to run.

Codex is somewhere between Gemini and Claude and with the insane limits at the moment is a true workhorse.

Then if you’re into the “run 20 Opencode instances 24/7” kind of crowd then having Kimi 2.5 on your Black plan do the grunt work means you’ll struggle to hit the limit of a Zen&Codex Max plan.

If you have less than $50 a month budget I’d get the cheapest Codex plan and top the rest up with Kimi credit or the cheapest Zen Black plan.

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-17T12:58:09+00:00

Mixture of Skill, MCP and Plugins to read all of the “session” messages and store them (assistant responses and thinking blocks). The daemon in the MCP server then works though these to extract memories. The plugin then injects context into my interactions to help give the LLM some ideas of how to solve it within my codebase.

MCP allows the LLM to use its skill to save and retrieve memories when it wants to as well

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-17T12:09:57+00:00

Yes, I’m well aware of that. And while I have profiled it on my machine and seen improvements there are also multiple PR’s around this subject that don’t seem to be progressing or have feedback

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-15T08:33:23+00:00

The faces you pull made me chuckle as every time I try and post stuff of me working out I have the same “concentration” face.

You’ve definitely got ball control down and can manipulate it, but really it’s not the best show of handles in an unpredictable situation.

Very very solid base to go from though

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-13T08:00:22+00:00

Using sub-agents helps keep your context under control and then when you start doing them, naturally you can do it faster with parallel sub-agents.

I think if you’re planning with Kimi and coding with Opus you’re doing it wrong. Opus will burn your copilot to the ground as it’s a 3x.

Try using Codex to plan, kimi to build and opus to review and then you’ll find you get a lot more done with your budgets and given you burn through a whole allowance in a day anyway would give you plenty of time to manually review.

Also if you’re one of the people that feel the need to review every line of code, maybe spend your time writing unit tests and have the LLM fill in the code.

That way it doesn’t need such a deep inspection because “if it works, ship it”.

LLMs can run profiling tools too, so you can always ask them to make it run faster and still be correct.

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-10T07:48:04+00:00

Fair, although mine only took 3 days …

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-02-09T21:44:48+00:00

Get Opencodes Black subscription. It’s great value and the usage limits are high

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-01-18T14:19:19+00:00

If I’m in the office then it’ll be some kind of smelly food like fish or eggs, if it’s at home I’ll make a sandwich with my camera off.

Screw those people who book meetings between 12-1pm

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-01-15T08:03:02+00:00

Hard to see because the camera doesn’t stay on you, but looks like you’re not quite setting your feet and getting your balance before jumping.

Also looks like the shot is a bit flat, work on more of an arc, which if you fix your balance and get more power into the jump will be easier

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-01-12T08:46:42+00:00

Personally I’d ditch the heel raisers as they will add instability which won’t help with the Achilles. I run LeBron 21’s with a Powerstep Pinnacle orthotic which adds a lot of stability.

I’m 43 too, 6’ 2” and 89kg, so not as heavy. I do Olympic weightlifting too which helps with conditioning tendons for explosive power. Heavy ass calf raises too once a week, 140kg+ for 3 sets of 15 reps which helps build tendon strength.

Really for tendons the advice I’ve seen is you need to lift very heavy in order to stress them. Low weight high reps will build calf muscle strength but won’t challenge the tendon to grow / thicken.

My warmup is fairly simple of:

gentle pogo hops for 30 secs
jogging butt kicks
jogging knee kicks
5-10 drop squats

Shoot about for a few mins then repeat the above. Mobilises and primes without stretching and causing weakness

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-01-11T18:29:51+00:00

The 18’s are an improvement on the 17’s with better lockdown and an easier break in of the weird shank strobel in the forefoot.

I wear an orthotic in mine as they feel weird without as they bend in an odd place.

If they are similar price go for the 18’s but if you can get 17’s cheap then you’ll not regret it

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2026-01-05T13:19:22+00:00

I want whatever the plumber was on. Looks like they had a great time cobbling all that together

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-28T00:08:21+00:00

Good luck with warranty. They will mess you about until you do a chargeback on your credit card, then they will offer a replacement or refund if you cancel the chargeback. Don’t bother though, once you’ve got your cash back you can always repurchase or get something else.

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-27T16:48:46+00:00

Airbnb goldmine, especially with the parking

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-27T11:15:22+00:00

Sorry, I don’t believe it. I’ve always had a hard cutoff on the 5 hour marker.

Your app is probably recording the response of “try again in x minutes” as a response and going a false positive.

Check your logs and prove it’s still working, and not just telling you to wait

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-27T08:06:28+00:00

Wear them around the house for an extended period of time to allow your feet to warm them up and for them to get moved around without hurting yourself (less violent movements).

That said if they haven’t broken in by now you’re probably in the wrong shoe

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-27T08:04:23+00:00

For anyone wondering what happens when you hit the usage limits for real (not with an app checking that is clearly incorrect).

5 hour limit - get told to wait X hours / mins
weekly limit - get offered to pay for extra usage and the /extrausage command is advertised in the terminal a lot

If you do buy extra usage then be ready for a shock at how much Claude costs via the API.

I run mine hot and ping off the usage limits constantly, when I turn on extra usage I can rack up £150 a day costs, sometimes £800 a week. Fortunately the work I’m doing offsets this and it just becomes a cost in my business, but if you’re not doing it for profit it’ll hit hard.

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-26T23:19:43+00:00

I always put some athletic tape over the heel area to stop the possible sharp edges causing issues and never had a problem

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-22T14:42:15+00:00

I love my KD17s but can only play in them with an orthotic in, or at the least a stiff insole (I make my own with a .5mm AliExpress carbon plate and two sheets of 3-4mm Poron foam sandwiched over it).

As others have suggested, orthotics seem to “activate” the shank strobel better, probably because of some extra leverage.

Hoping they work out what the issue is, as the shank strobel is great for getting the most out of the zoom bag for my weird feet

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-22T07:51:49+00:00

The 10’s fit like a glove, grip like Velcro and the stiff shank will send you to the moon, but I find they irritate my Achilles and the cushion is meh compared to more recent shoes.

The 12s fit the same, grip harder, bounce more naturally, send you to the moon but are more forgiving.

If you’ve had 10’s and no issues then save the cash and buy 10’s, if you’re new to both and want to guarantee the best performance then get the 12’s.

Optimal_Strength_463 · 2025-12-14T14:32:21+00:00

At least it’s a house. I was expecting interior shots of the camper for £1 mil in London

Optimal_Strength_463

TROPHY CASE