If you’ve been coding anytime in the past year, you’ve probably heard the buzz about Cursor — the AI-powered IDE that promises to write your code, clean your code, and maybe even refactor your soul.

It’s built on top of VS Code, so it feels instantly familiar. But the moment you hit that shiny AI shortcut, you realize: this thing is smarter than your codebase and hungrier than your wallet.

After a few months of using Cursor — and after accidentally vaporizing a scandalous number of API tokens — I’ve learned how to stay productive and solvent. And yes, the TL;DR is that you can still combine Cursor with Ollama + local models to get many of these benefits for free. Here are my 8 hard-earned tips to make Cursor your loyal sidekick within the limits of your budget.