Frugality: Turning Down Resources

Situation

Our team was tasked with building a reporting module for internal stakeholders. The original plan was to spin up a new microservice, allocate a dedicated backend engineer, and subscribe to a commercial reporting SaaS that cost $12K/year.

While budget had been approved, I realized we could achieve 80% of the functionality by reusing tools and pipelines we already had — and avoid long-term vendor lock-in.

Task

My goal was to deliver the same value, but without increasing infrastructure costs or headcount. I needed to build trust in a leaner approach and show that cutting cost didn’t mean cutting corners.

Action

I created a working prototype using:

• 📊 Pre-aggregated queries in PostgreSQL using materialized views
• 📦 Reused our internal admin UI and added a custom reporting tab
• 📤 Built a CSV export endpoint with built-in filters

Instead of a full-time engineer, I took on most of the backend work myself and pulled in a frontend developer for just 2 days to handle styling and UX improvements.

// Simplified reporting view setup
  CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW user_activity_summary AS
  SELECT user_id, COUNT(*) AS logins, MAX(login_date) AS last_login
  FROM user_activity
  GROUP BY user_id;
      

Result

The new reporting dashboard was live in 9 days — ahead of schedule. We saved the company $12K annually and required zero additional infrastructure. Stakeholders actually preferred the lightweight, internal tool because it loaded faster and integrated with existing workflows.

This project became a case study during quarterly ops planning to highlight “lean thinking with high impact.”

Reflection

• 💡 Frugality sparks invention — when constraints are clear, creativity follows.
• 🚫 Saying “no” to excess is a skill — not a blocker to innovation.
• 📈 Delivering value doesn't always mean adding more — sometimes it's reusing smarter.

FAQ