I have been using AWS servers since 2010 for clients. I think they are a great, if not the greatest, cloud solutions on the market right now.
T1. Micro Reserved Instance
(1 year subscription... expires 01/31/2015)
I keep the T1.micro server around to run one simple client web site (very non-important) and to run an offsite git remote repository. I am thinking about mounting an s3 folder as my remote git/rsync drive for more robust offsite backups.
Come next renewal cycle I will definitely be replacing this with a T2.micro instance. It has more memory and is better suited to how I use this server. (Update I changed my mind based on the new pricing scheme) Looks like EC2 prices have gone down a fair bit and they changed their model. Now a reserved instance can be paid all in advance for the year. So if Wanted a T2.micro for the year I could pay $75 (as of 1/15/2015) and that pays for the entire year. The T1.micro has no reserve instance and its price per hour plummeted to 0.0031/hr or $2.33/mo. I have no immediate need to go from a T1 to a T2 so I think I will hold off until the need comes along (and its cheaper anyway)
Route 53
I run my own DNS server at home, for several reasons... But I do love the simpleness and ease of route 53. I run a few domains through it including whiteboardcoder.com
Great service I highly recommend it.
S3I have a few files backed up here. I think I am going to expand my use of it in the next 12 months. The recent prices drops down to $0.03/GiB/Month is pretty attractive. I may mentally prepare myself to allow up 100 GiB of storage on S3 which would be $3/mo and see how I use it.
GlacierGlacier is only $0.01/GiB/Mo I may set up a yearly backup of 100-300 GiB of key data in my house, kids pictures, etc, this year.
AWS has a lot of other neat tools I love to use, but have no need to pay for personal use of. I love VPC, RDS, and DynamoDB, but I have no personal need to use them.
For those of you who love crunching numbers here is my AWS bill for the last few months (August is not yet done)
I spend approximately $7.50 a month for a T1.Micro server with a 20 GiB hard drive and 4 domain names services by AWS. My S3 use at this point is negligible. I paid $62.00 for the 1-year reserved instance for the T1.Micro. So to be fair add another 62/12 = $5.16 per month to my true cost and you get under $13/mo