Common pitfalls that can cause your AWS cloud bill to balloon include unmonitored and unused resources, over-provisioning, missing out on discounts, data transfer costs, and non-optimized storage.
To avoid high bills, regularly monitor your AWS environment, scale resources appropriately, take advantage of discounts like Reserved Instances, and optimize data transfer.
Utilize tools like AWS Cost Explorer, Trusted Advisor, Compute Optimizer, and AWS Budgets to track spending, identify unused resources, and set budget alerts.
Employ tagging for visibility, use auto-scaling to adjust resources based on demand, consider Reserved Instances or Savings Plans instead of On-Demand, and utilize Spot Instances for cost savings.
Simplify complex architectures, monitor Free Tier usage to avoid unexpected costs, and leverage tools like AWS Well-Architected Framework and Cost Anomaly Detection for cost optimization.