Wage Control For Top Team

This is my Crewe side with all their contracts, I was wondering how people control the wage budget of teams punching above their weight. I am doing quite well with a 7th place finish in my first ever EPL season. I had placed a self imposed 30k a week wage limit but when the chance to sign a world class player came up I broke it and as you can see he is the only player earning more than 30k and double his nearest rival. My team is pretty young and they will want bigger contracts based on their abilities as they progress. Is it possible to challenge for European places or even the league title on a small weekly wage budget. At the moment my budget is £343k a week, this allows me to make between 200k and 500k profit a month as long as I don't have too many away games.

If I want to challenge for the title I will have to invest in better players at much much bigger wages. The only teams I have managed and challenged for the title have a wage budget of £1 million a week. So is it possible to challenge on a wage budget under 500k? Do you place self imposed wage limits? It seems the financial side of the game is not talked about that much. I want to try and set my club on a sound footing first. I got Gourcuff for free but fully expect him to leave after one season for a big transfer fee. Are feeder clubs worth getting like they were on FM09?

I am playing as Newcastle, so it is a little difficult to compare, but I do adopt a very similar philosophy as you. I try and keep the players wages as small as possible to maximize my profit.

The big earner in my squad is Hulk who is on 90k per week and for a long time was on double the next highest wage.

Unfortunately as you get more successful the players also seem to want bigger wages, I just had the message that several players where in the last year of their contract. After a round of negotiations, they are now all earning a lot more than they were previously, this is despite some of them being at an age where their abilities and team status have remained the same, so the only thing that has changed is their and the teams reputation. I still managed to keep the majority on a lower wage than they could get else where, but I now have 5 players earning 60k and higher.

My wage budget has crept up to 1.3 million, which while still 700k under budget is higher than I would like.

I have no idea how you could push to challenge for the title on less than 500k with out a serious turn over of players and the handy-cap of success causing you to need to pay them higher wages.