Hi yzr,
I'm glad to know that you were able to resolve your issue and thank you for posting your solution so that others experiencing the same thing can easily reference this! Since the Microsoft Q&A community has a policy that "The question author cannot accept their own answer. They can only accept answers by others ", I'll repost your solution in case you'd like to "Accept " the answer.
Issue:
How to reduce charges to $0 while in the Free Tier plan.
Solution:
To create a truly free VM, on the https://portal.azure.com/#home page, click the Free services
icon, instead of clicking the Virtual machines
icon:
By clicking the Free services
icon, a 3-step creation process started, instead of the 9-steps process via the 'Virtual machines' icon.
If you have any other questions or are still running into more issues, please let me know. Thank you again for your time and patience throughout this issue.
Please remember to "Accept Answer" if any answer/reply helped, so that others in the community facing similar issues can easily find the solution.
Thank you.