That’s a possible tradeoff. One of the first things I did was limit the number (and adjust the frequency) of backups. I haven’t yet moved to block storage for backups, or uploads, but that might be a win, if it extends the useful life of a limited-RAM configuration.
(Another thing I did, towards the end of my tenure in the smallest config machines, was to temporarily rescale to a larger RAM instance just for the time it takes to do an upgrade, and then rescale back. It only cost pennies, even though the larger instance might be twice the monthly cost. But it does take a little downtime, and a little time and care. And it requires that your provider has a larger machine with the same disk capacity - upscaling to a config with larger disk is usually a one-way street.)