Wage Bill: How low can you go?

I've become a little obsessive about this part of management. Not only squeezing the wage bill down as much as i can, but also things like getting a players apperance fee from £40 down to £20. And i absolutely refuse to give players a yearly 10% wage increase.

I'm only just beginning my second season in charge of a non-league club and this is how low i've gone so far:

Wage Bill: £7,262 per week

Wage Budget: £12,750 per week

So i'm currently spending - out of choice - 57% of my allowed budget. I say out of choice, i feel it's essential when managing small clubs to be this prudent. We've just got promoted to the Blue Square Premier from the Blue Square North and are looking to be competitive but have slashed our wage bill by nearly £3k. This is still a work-in-progress as i'm only a year into the job: i hope by next year to get the wage bill down at least another £2k. It will mean getting rid of some of our highest earners, most of whom i inherited, and will include our top scorer of last season. But that's life.

I used to have a short term mentality with regards to the wage bill and i'd push the boundaries as much as possible, usually going a few thousand over my budget even. I've now gone to the other extreme because if i'm ever going to make a profit and build up a healthy bank balance in hope to massively improve my training and youth facilities then i'm going to have to reduce expenditure as much as possible (and increase turnover by selling the cheaply accrued young talent i can get my hands on for big profits).

So what are other peoples approaches to the wage bill? How prudent/reckless are you? And what's the lowest anyone has managed to get their wage bill (in relative terms) while still enjoying success?

In lower leagues I always seem to go over, but in my saves as Athletic Bilbao I was always well under my wage bill.

Currently I'm in my fourth season as Spurs and am around $800k p/w below my current wage bill and have won the Champion's League, FA Cup, Carling Cup, Community Shield, Euro Super Cup, and Club World Cup; as well as going undefeated in the league my third season, all the while spending as little as possible on player wages. Of those trophies, only the Champ's League and FA Cup were won before my third season, when my wage budget went up to where it is now and I have only gone about $100k or so higher than where it was during that season.

i started off the same, extremely prudent. It didnt lead to much success though. Eventually made a promotion but that was by unusually handing out a big wage to a top left winger. I changed my prudency eventualy and now rely on mainly cup money. Also get an attendance boost by being on the right end of the table. I have just landed myself an away tie at man utd and am also top of the table so im laughing. In your shoes i would not sell your star striker, strikers are so important on this fm

Im doing Defuge's challenge with Tonbridge Angels.

Im in my 5th season in the premier league in the year 2025.

I finished a very close 4th (On GD from Sundrland in 3rd) in the league last season and won the Euro Cup.

Ive shut the game down now but from memory I think Im spending less than 500k a week on wages and am allowed about 800k

My biggest earner is on 45k per week. Average wage is about 30/35k and the average squad age is about 22.

My tirck has been to sign the best youngsters I can on the lowest wage possible and give them 5 year contracts. I always refuse to give better contracts if there is over 2 years left on the current deal and they usually accept that if the team is doing well and I have built a good relationship with them (I always praise good form/good last match etc)

If a player insists on a min release clause or a match highest earner clause (Or similar annoyance) I usually offer a better 5 year deal after one year and omit those clauses. If thay have been playing and we are doing well in the league, they usually always sign the clauseless contract.

In 5 years, Ive had problems with only one player over wages.

If you work hard at it, it is possible to run a tight ship

It is however, very hard, if not impossible, to sign established players in my save on wages under 80/90k per week.

(Also, I am yet to spend more than 10million on a single player)

Obviously, if you use the monthly payment option (Which I have never done in this save), give out huge wages and buy world class players for 20 mil a pop, sucess should come quicker. But in my particular save I tried to keep it realistic and build slowly ... it is after all, a challenge, not a race

Tip; If you gain a promotion, try to give new contracts to players who have the 40% promotion wage rise clause and omit that clause.... Can save you a lot of cash in some cases. Do it just after the season ends obviously.

I never go above the bottom end of the scale on the 'adjust budgets' thingy, so if the scale goes from say 200k per week up to 400k per week once I convert the transfer funds, I try to stick to the 200k per week. This seems to work quite well with regard to keeping the club in slight profit, and also appears to work on the basis of not taking any extra non-guaranteed income like prize money into account. The upper limit invariably eats into the existing bank balance and usually ends up meaning significant losses for the year, although I do get annoyed when I've been quite financially responsible and the money I've saved ends up being doled out to shareholders

I suppose I should spend it before it comes to that, but I hate actually paying for players, it seems totally un-necessary when you can develop your own and invariably find equally as good replacements on freedom of contract if you scout and scour the gameworld enough.

I'm managing 5 time Champions league winners in my save. The club is now the 7th richest in the world, and I probably have a maximum wage budget of over 1 million, but I've managed to keep it down to about 60k per week... I send all my youngsters who won't be first teamers out on loan, and try to get most of their wage paid by the loaning club... I only offer 5 year contracts to players below 30 yrs of age, and normally make up for the low offered wage with an inflated signing fee and/or agent fee... Believe me, in the long run, this comes out to be way cheaper... It also helps that I only buy players below 21 yrs of age, and sign older players only on free transfers...

It helps to scout the player you want to sign multiple times using different scouts to find out the wage he would be willing to accept... So, even if agents try to spoil the party, I always know when to splash the cash and when to call negotiations off...

My higher earner is on £ 4000 p.w. and he is a wonderkid, a regular first teamer for Brazil, and has been with me since he was 18... Actually, I got him on a bargain fee and contract since I signed him back when he was 15...

I'm managing 5 time Champions league winners in my save. The club is now the 7th richest in the world, ...

You pay out 60k a week and your highest earner is on 4k a week?

Screen shots please

Sounds like others are much more financially prudent than me. I'm in the prem with st. albans city, highest wage is 30k per week. More through necessity than choice as the club's revenue is tiny, particularly with sponsorship, compared to everyone else. But I've finished 5th in the league last two seasons.

I think I'll need to break my structure to get top 4 or wait a long time for some of my academy imports to break into the first team.