Things went south today. I wasn't paying attention while debugging the code and wrote the wrong loop condition. As a result, the program started spamming API requests in the background, and by the time I realized it, the bill had already shot up to $80.

This lesson taught me that whenever integrating with any paid API, you must first implement request rate limiting and exception monitoring. Especially with services that charge per call, even a small bug in your code can drain your wallet instantly.

Now I’m planning to add a request counter and a circuit breaker mechanism. I never want to see a bill like that again...