//erikzaadi.com/tags/tools/ Recent content in Tools on Erik Zaadi Hugo en-us © erikzaadi.com Sat, 02 May 2026 10:00:00 +0300 //erikzaadi.com/2026/05/02/squeezing-more-out-of-claude-on-a-personal-account/ Sat, 02 May 2026 10:00:00 +0300 //erikzaadi.com/2026/05/02/squeezing-more-out-of-claude-on-a-personal-account/ <p>After <a href="//erikzaadi.com/2026/04/08/my-kid-didnt-want-to-dm-so-i-built-one/">building dnd-fam-ftw</a>, I kept hacking on it using Claude Code on my personal account. Personal accounts have usage limits, so I started paying attention to where tokens were going and where they weren&rsquo;t. Here&rsquo;s what actually helped.</p> <div style="width: 100%; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"> <img style="box-shadow: 0 15px 20px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.25);border-radius: 15px; border: solid 1px transparent;display: block; width: 80%; margin: 0.7rem; auto" src="//erikzaadi.com/images/claude-neovim-savings/claude-savings-for-dnd.png" alt="Small change that brought efficiency" title="Small change that brought efficiency" /> </div> <hr> <h2 id="claudemd-as-a-memory-workaround">CLAUDE.md as a Memory Workaround</h2> <p>Claude Code compacts context automatically when it gets long. When that happens, it relies on <code>CLAUDE.md</code> to rebuild its understanding of the project. If your <code>CLAUDE.md</code> is thin, you pay in repeated re-explanation and mistakes after each compaction. If it&rsquo;s <em>THICCC</em>, you pay in time and tokens each time you start a new session (ironically when you run <code>/clean</code> to save tokens as well).</p>