I stopped using Claude for 80% of my coding tasks. Here's what I use instead.

Stop Using "Senior" AI for Junior Tasks: How I Cut Token Costs by 85% Here’s a take most developers get wrong: The best AI tool isn't the most powerful one. It's the right one for the job. I use Claude Code every day. I also use a local 14B model that can't hold a candle to it. But routing tasks between them cut my token usage by ~85% on a real project last week — with identical output quality. Here is the logic behind this "Model Routing" and how you can replicate it. The Problem: Hiring an Architect to Paint Walls Imagine you're writing a new feature. You type /implement add a caching layer. Typically, a high-end tool like Claude Code: Reads your entire codebase for context. Thinks through the architecture. Writes the boilerplate. Generates the imports. Formats the code. Steps 1–2? That's Claude doing what only Claude can do (high-level reasoning). Steps 3–5? That's a job for a 14B local model. By using Claude for all of it, you're paying senior rates for junior execution. The Routin