Original link: https://luolei.org/how-much-i-spend-on-cloud-monthly-2023
In 2015, 2017, and 2020, I wrote three articles about “cloud bills”, recording the money I spent on various cloud services and subscriptions:
Three years have passed in a blink of an eye, and the first blog in 2023 is to update my latest cloud bill.
For my cloud bill this year, compared to previous years, the key word is “simplification”, which is “cost reduction and efficiency increase” in the popular words now.
In today’s article, in addition to introducing my subscription bill, I will also introduce some of my own streamlined ideas for your reference.
Compared with the average monthly total expenditure of ¥1161 in 2020, the average monthly total expenditure of my subscription in 2023 will drop to ¥613, a decrease of 47%.
1. Communication cost ​
In 2020, I spent nearly 500 yuan on communication every month, and now my spending on communication has dropped to ¥267.
1. China Unicom Shenzhen (¥70/month)
At the end of December 2022, my three-year contract with Shenzhen Telecom finally came to an end. After comparison, the three numbers of Shenzhen Telecom were ported to Shenzhen Unicom. 30% off plus superimposed discounts on China Unicom’s number portability transfer. Currently, I am using China Unicom’s “Changshuang Ice Cream 5G Package 199 Yuan”.
- Basic monthly rent: ¥199 RMB, 70% off the actual ¥60
- Traffic: 60GB national traffic
- Call: 1000 minutes
- Broadband: 1000M optical fiber
- Supplementary card*3: two supplementary cards free + additional supplementary card 10 yuan/month
- IPTV: 10 yuan/month, free for the first year, set-top box deposit ¥100.
In the past three years, I used Shenzhen Telecom at home in Shenzhen. The monthly fee of 299+20 secondary cards made my actual monthly rent as high as ¥329/month. Telecom’s network quality is the best, but Shenzhen Telecom’s price is also low. It is the most expensive in the country.
Before porting the number to the network, I also went to the telecom business hall to inquire about the discounts for old customers. In the end, the business hall only applied for a package of ¥199/month including 1000M broadband, which is still much different from Unicom’s ¥70/month package. , In the end, the number portability is transferred to the network.
2. China Telecom Dongguan (¥189/month)
I will move to a new house in Dongguan in 2022. At present, my wife and I mainly live here. At present, the broadband used at home in Dongguan is still China Telecom’s “5G Unlimited Integration Package”.
- Basic monthly rent: ¥189
- Traffic: 100GB national traffic
- Call: 1000 minutes
- Broadband: 1000M optical fiber (public network IP)
- Secondary card*2: Two secondary cards are free
- IPTV: Free
Dongguan Telecom’s monthly rent of ¥189/month is actually almost equivalent to the ¥199/month package I got from Shenzhen Telecom. The price/performance ratio is average, but considering my home network needs, I will use it in the end.
The three Dongguan numbers are all used by family members, so there is no need to waste phone calls or surfing the Internet.
3. China Mobile Chengdu (¥8/month)
My wife’s Chengdu number is used by China Mobile’s “8 yuan daily rental card”, which is purely for insurance number.
4. China Telecom Macau (¥80/month)
At present, the only overseas card package I am using, if nothing else, it should be the most popular overseas card. Keyword “China Telecom Macau Student Card”.
- Basic monthly rent: MOP$188 MOP, the actual half-price MOP$94 is about ¥80.
- Traffic: 40GB traffic
- Call: 600 minutes call
This Macau card belongs to one card with two numbers. In addition to providing a Macau number of +853 ***, it also provides a number of +86 191*** belonging to Zhuhai (and does not occupy the 5 numbers of 1 person of the domestic operator. Quantity Quota).
At present, this card is my main card. There is no wall, so I don’t have to worry about network problems. The monthly traffic of 40GB is enough for heavy use. Watching videos and turning on hotspots are very cool.
As for Cuniq Hong Kong Unicom, my contract will be canceled after it expires in 2022.
2. Server related ​
At present, I have three servers in my hand, one in China and two outside.
0. Domain name registration
First of all, it is still domain name registration. All my domain names are registered and hosted at Name.com . At present, the number of domain names maintained is about 10, and the annual cost is not small. Prepare to streamline it in 2023.
**1.** Tencent Cloud CVM-Guangzhou
- CPU: 4 cores
- Memory: 8GB
- Bandwidth: 5Mbps.
Purchased May 2020, due May 2023. ¥1999 for three years.
Many of my daily services run on this machine, and the 4-core 8GB performance is enough for most demand scenarios. The 5Mbps small water pipe is not enough.
It is expected that after this service expires this year, we will continue to reduce the cost of domestic servers. Some services running on the cloud will be gradually migrated back to the HomeLab at home (many have been migrated back so far), and a small machine may be purchased for domestic proxy forwarding.
2. Tencent Cloud Lightweight – Hong Kong (¥54/month)
- CPU: 2 cores
- Memory: 4GB
- Hard disk: 60G
- Bandwidth: 30Mbps.
My blog has a lot of pictures, and I don’t worry about third-party picture beds. I specially set up a lightweight Hong Kong to store the static resources of my blog, and also use it as some lightweight overseas agents.
3. Linode-Tokyo ($10)
- CPU: 1 core
- Memory: 2GB
- Hard disk: 50G
It has been almost 10 years since I started using Linode in 2013. At present, I use this Linode as my overseas backup service, and some data and services will be deployed on this service simultaneously. If you don’t have a domestic background, you can buy a backup for your own data and understand everything.
4. Tencent Cloud MySQL ​
Annual fee ¥136. The main reason is that I am too lazy to maintain and backup. For some services that rely on databases, I directly use Tencent Cloud MySQ.
Thin part ​
- DNSpod resolution: At present, the resolution service has been downgraded to the free package of DNSpod, and the overseas resolution has been migrated to Cloudflare.
- DigitalOcean: Overseas resources are redundant, no longer needed
- Baidu Cloud Acceleration: But in the past two years, my blog has not been updated much, and the traffic can be supported by Tencent Cloud Lightweight, so it was cancelled.
3. Cloud Service & ZeroWidthSpace;
Coming to the cloud service part, this part involves productivity. Regarding the content of this part, I have always adhered to the long-standing principle of “If you can use the genuine version, try to use the genuine one.”
In order to prevent the conflict, I don’t want to set up any archways. I only give my own true description of the payment schemes such as cross-district and shared renting that I adopted. I will not refute if I insist that I violated the regulations. Pay to support various services according to your own situation.
1.Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) ​
Since 2017, I have been linking my domain name mailbox to Google Suite. At the beginning, it was 10 dollars/month and then the price increased to 12 dollars. Counting the past 6 years, I have paid 7,800 dollars to Google.
In October 2022, a friend introduced that he spent 60 dollars to set up a lifetime free Google Workspace account, and then transferred all the original domain name mailboxes.
The original G Suite can only be bound to one domain name. After switching to this Google Workspace, it supports any new domain name and 300 users. This is my most valuable cloud service.
2. Apple iCloud ($3)
$3 per month, US iCloud package, 200G space, iCloud (¥21) in the national area has been canceled this year, and the US area is reserved only for convenience. In fact, I feel that iCloud in the US region can also be cancelled.
After configuring a new NAS this year ” I don’t want to bother: Greenlink DX4600 domestic NAS unboxing experience “, most of the photos are currently backed up directly to the NAS, and iCloud album synchronization is actually not necessary.
3. Adobe Cloud Creative (¥450/year)
Adobe is the service I paid the most, and it should have exceeded 5 figures in total. Since 2018, I have subscribed to the Adobe Cloud Creative family bucket, and for a while I even subscribed to two family bucket packages. The standard price in Hong Kong is $228 Hong Kong dollars, and the student package is $148 Hong Kong dollars.
During the Black Friday period in 2022, after some research, I canceled the two packages in the port area and changed them to the student package in Turkey. The annual fee is about ¥450.
The application was successful with Turkish IP + foreign currency credit card, and there were no identity verification and restrictions.
4. Office 365 & Zero Width Space;
Microsoft’s complete collection bucket, family package 223 a month, supports 6 people to use, I shared several accounts out by car. In fact, my wife and I have two accounts, more than 100 a year.
5. SetApp ​
SetApp is an old subscription service on the Mac. The price of the family package has increased to $14.9/month, and the annual fee is about ¥1,200. I still rent a car with others, and each person charges 200 a year. In fact, I own The expenditure is about ¥400/year.
4. Entertainment & ZeroWidthSpace;
Next came the last part of entertainment & shopping. Compared with 2020, the entertainment subscriptions that I need to pay for now are much less.
1. YouTube Premium member ​
YouTube Premium members will undergo a wave of price increases in October 2022, from $17.99 to $22.99 in the US region. Before that, my YouTube was also shared by car, at 200 RMB per person per year. Taking advantage of this wave of price increases, I also studied the area transfer, and finally transferred the account to the Turkish area seamlessly, and the annual fee dropped to ¥50/person/year.
YouTube is the channel that my wife and I watch the most. It costs 100/year for two people, and it’s worth it to be free of ads.
2.Netflix ​
I still subscribe to Netflix and drive with other people, about ¥200 a year.
Regarding the entertainment part, the current spending is much less, but the actual entertainment experience has not declined much. On the one hand, the quality and quality of videos on YouTube and Netflix are not bad. In addition, after moving into a new house this year, the NAS at home cooperates with Alibaba Cloud to play offline dramas. It is also very convenient to watch dramas.
Thin part ​
- NetEase Cloud Music: In view of copyright and taste, it has gradually turned to Spotify
- iQiyi Member: My wife watches it occasionally, but she no longer pays for it
- Tencent Video Super VIP: Same as iQiyi, nothing attractive
- Bilibili Big Member: There is no paid content that can attract me to buy a big membership, but I still exchange points for a season card
- Xunlei super member: Greenlink NAS has its own membership, and the download source is gradually shifting to Alibaba cloud disk
- Baidu Cloud Disk: Backups are gradually shifting to their own NAS, and download resources are shifting to Alibaba Cloud Disk
- Nintendo Family Members: The Switch Has Eaten Ashes This Year
Summary ​
With an interval of three years, compared to the last bill, this time the cloud bill is more rational, removing many redundant services and subscriptions. Accumulated every year, you can save thousands of dollars.
Sometimes I can’t help but feel that I spend nearly 100 yuan a day for parking in the company and in the community. Compared with the expenses of housing loans, car loans, insurance, parking spaces, etc. in life, these expenses of cloud services are actually not much.
Having said that, but return to rationality, for this kind of controllable expenses, try to develop the mentality and habit of “don’t increase the entity if it is not necessary”.
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