IME the wayback machine might give you the post body. I tend to need the comments as well, and archive.today can save all that properly. It usually isn’t saved already, so you’ll have to wait a minute or two. I just use this time to look for other sources.

(RE: storage costs: it is probably easier to throw a couple extra bucks at your admins (if possible), and that should more than cover the costs for a good number of images.)