AI helped me save eur13/month

Since 13/06/2022, I’ve been a paid user and have happily been using this tool called Lucidchart for flowcharts, BPMN diagrams, system maps, mockups, and all kinds of visual thinking.

I genuinely love tools that help turn messy systems and problems into something you can actually see.

Over that time, I paid €541.25 for the service, that's about €13/month. Worth it.

But after building digistrategy.eu with Codex, and seeing what AI-assisted coding can now do, I started wondering:

Could I build a simpler flowchart tool for myself?

So I did.

I exported my Lucidchart diagrams to Visio, built an importer for my own tool, and I’m now cancelling my subscription.

The migration was not just a test either:

63 pages
4,871 cards
2,436 connectors

All was exported from the old system and imported into the new one.

Not because Lucidchart is bad. Quite the opposite, it’s excellent.

But because the AI shift is no longer something “coming soon.” It has already started, and I’m already reaping the benefits.

AI has improved my work routine in many small but meaningful ways: faster drafting, better structuring, clearer analysis, quicker prototyping, and more effective decision-making.

But beyond the productivity gains, there are also very tangible savings.

So far, I can directly point to:
• ~€500 saved by repairing my dishwasher myself guided by the AI
• ~€13/month saved by replacing one SaaS subscription

And that disregards the numerous smaller ways AI helps me compare options, analyse purchases, and avoid inefficient decisions.

The biggest benefit is not even the money. It’s the ability to build tools that fit exactly how I work.

The build-vs-buy equation is changing fast:
less “one-size-fits-all software,” more personal tools built around specific workflows.

Curious to hear what’s the first SaaS tool you’d try to rebuild for yourself with AI?

If

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

I love you more than I can say