I recently had my male dog neutered at a low cost clinic and it was $45. I did have to drive about an hour to get to the place, but it was well worth it. I would google low cost spay+ your zipcode
Welcome! Also yes- none of the low cost places around here use monitoring either, a rescue I work with stopped using them because of that. If I were you I would call around to vets. You can get a small dog neutered for about $185 around here including pre-anasthetic blood work and monitoring if you call around. Low cost clinics are between $45 and $90. Some vets would charge $500 too, it really depends. If not then I agree- wait and save up the money. Low cost places do a lot of good work and it is pretty safe but if your guy is older or has any other risk factors it is probably safer to save up for a regular vet to do it. I wouldn't want to put a older dog under without monitoring and blood-work.