Are you a Spender or a Saver?

[Matt123]

Normally a spender but this year is the most I've spent on one player which is £29m over 4yrs for Cavani - never spent that amount before on a player but he's proving to be worth atleast with me top of the Prem.

I tend to sign up plenty of youth players some 3*/3* potential who probably won't play first team but loaned out to one of my feeder teams where after a while they'll probably be shipped on for hopefully a profit.

Wages I'm a spender, although atm only one player is on over 100k (cavani on 105k) I try and keep them fairly lowish, so if you're not playing much but you're used as back up for when the inevitable injuries occur you will get a slight increase maybe 10k altho I try and push it lower than that. Key/first teamers will normally get a bigger increase in wage but I do try and impose some sort of salary cap that I struggle to stick to lol

[x42bn6]

Saver. In my current FM08 game, I've managed to get my wage budget down to £800,000/week (from £1.3m/week) and has only gone up to £980,000/week because some of my older players can't get transfers.

My transfer income is also twice as much as my transfer expenses. And I suspect that in FM08, the transfer income doesn't include sell-on fees, of which I have made tons from...

[jimbobBRFC]

I spend what I make in transfers. No more, no less. It makes for a very interesting game

Thats the way to play it. Every now and again I splash cash but besides from that try to always breakeven. For example I'm just about to spend big on a DM as i had Diarra for a year but he left for Florentina so need a good replacement

[khriztian]

A bit of both, I save for a couple of seasons, and then spend aggressively.

[rimm!]

massive spender, i always spend about 6times my transfer budget in the first window on youth prospects in every position, then cannot understand why my players are so inconsistent and then obsolete when the first regens come through.

i should have learnt by now!

[RCCook]

I generally tend to bargain-hunt for veterans and drop a few million on youth each season, but will spend more if there's a player I feel is a good fit for my club. I played a Lyon save last year and did quite well, never spending more than £11.5 million on a single player. Mostly bought African and South American teenagers, and developed them into first-teamers, as well as attempting to follow the "Lyon transfer rules" laid out in Soccernomics.

So far on my Krasnodar save in FM12, I've bought one first-team player for around £3.5 million, and about 10 others for a combined £1.5 million, mostly youth.

[Guest avine]

being a saver is somehow of a low loyalty to your club approach. The goal is to achieve at least the competition's expectations described in confidence tab>competitions. So its better to spend all the transfer budget to make sure that you get there, and just balance the finances for payments of 48 months buys and sales

[Nellie]

I'll spend what I can/have to when I first start the game (always Liverpool) to get the squad to the point I like. I tend to split my purchases between the guys who'll immediately improve my squad and taking punts on kiddies for the future. For the first 2-3 seasons if the board give me the cash I'll go out and spend it, preferably on FM "names" rather than RL ones although there is often an overlap. Kadlec is my bargain buy for the next decade, compared to say, Neymar. £5.5mil and 23k in wages compared to whatever astronomical figure it takes to prise Neymar out. After 3 seasons my spending nosedives as I've got the squad I need to compete now and have an U-18s/Reserve squad full of up and coming talent.

I won't claim to always sign the next ... but it's rare that I don't at least turn a profit when it's clear that 20 year old is never going to break the first team or even warm the bench. I try to keep my squad relatively small, 3 players for each position, but it generally balloons in the first couple of seasons while I try to offload the dead wood.

[Tactic Master]

being a saver is somehow a low loyalty to your club approach. The goal is to achieve at least the competition's expectations described in confidence tab>competitions. So its better to spend all the transfer budget to make sure that you get there, and just balance the finances for payments of 48 months buys and sales

Sometimes this should be the case, but others not. My Barcelona team already has the full ingredients from me spending 26mil on a LB. 2nd season, I've spent £10mil on 4 top regens of 16 year old. I don't see the point of spending like I used to, because you don't need to.

Spending to get loads of players in your squad when you don't need them, can lead to bad squad harmony.

I've read everything, everyones responded with in this thread, and they've turned me from "Spender" to "Saver". I'm the richest club in the world worth over £1bil and i plan to make that £2bil within 10 seasons

[Tactic Master]

I'll spend what I can/have to when I first start the game (always Liverpool) to get the squad to the point I like. I tend to split my purchases between the guys who'll immediately improve my squad and taking punts on kiddies for the future. For the first 2-3 seasons if the board give me the cash I'll go out and spend it, preferably on FM "names" rather than RL ones although there is often an overlap. Kadlec is my bargain buy for the next decade, compared to say, Neymar. £5.5mil and 23k in wages compared to whatever astronomical figure it takes to prise Neymar out. After 3 seasons my spending nosedives as I've got the squad I need to compete now and have an U-18s/Reserve squad full of up and coming talent.

I won't claim to always sign the next ... but it's rare that I don't at least turn a profit when it's clear that 20 year old is never going to break the first team or even warm the bench. I try to keep my squad relatively small, 3 players for each position, but it generally balloons in the first couple of seasons while I try to offload the dead wood.

You work it the right way

[Nellie]

You work it the right way

I try Ultimately you can, and I certainly have, built teams based on £40million players on £100k a week, but I love finding the next ... whether they come through the youth squad or it's that kiddie I bought from arse end of nowhere united 3 years ago for 50k. I still don't have the heart to delete FM11 because my liverpool team with a 30 year old Sanchez etc also has 5 first name on the sheet team players worth 100 times what I bought/developed them for, they're pretty much all regens.

Where the game does you no favours from a premier league point of view is that you tend to inherit a club with 30+ U18s, most of whom are utter rubbish. I "wasted" maybe £1million of the club's money sacking every U18 player with under 2 stars to trim that down to 10 or so players that I then started to top up with quality-ish kids if my top scouts think the kid's 3*+ and I can get them cheap then great.

I don't have a reserve squad either. There are first team players available for the reserves and U-18s, the reserves are solely players who won't get near my subs bench and I want to offload next transfer window. If I can't take a player out of the U-18s and put them in the senior squad (or load them out) then I'm looking to offload them [at a profit].

The TL/DR version is that if you want to be a Saver in a club arguably with cash to burn, you need to set the infrastructure up to develop it. My U-18s are all match fit (if not 100% condition at match time), my first team squad the same. If you have players "severely lacking match fitness", you have too many players in your squad. You're wasting the chairman's money and potentially your kids aren't developing.

[ExpatKopite]

I would guess I fall into a spender category. I too like to start with hard-up clubs but I tend to convert as much as my transfer budget to my wage budget as possible and if I sell a player, I convert any money given to me in transfer budget to wage budget.

This enables me to 'attract' better players on free transfers - damn mercenarys. I am a spender because I tend then to max out my wage budget but usually end up with a squad capable of a promotion fight.

The advantage to this method, particularly with poorer clubs is that I am able to get 3-4 players for the price of one as I spend my transfer budget in wages.

[Tactic Master]

I would guess I fall into a spender category. I too like to start with hard-up clubs but I tend to convert as much as my transfer budget to my wage budget as possible and if I sell a player, I convert any money given to me in transfer budget to wage budget.

This enables me to 'attract' better players on free transfers - damn mercenarys. I am a spender because I tend then to max out my wage budget but usually end up with a squad capable of a promotion fight.

The advantage to this method, particularly with poorer clubs is that I am able to get 3-4 players for the price of one as I spend my transfer budget in wages.

I always move my funds do wages too, no matter what club or finances I have, because like you say, you can attract better players. I don't do it for just that 1 purpose though. You can attract a wider range of players because of having more wages to offer, but you can always click 'adjust budget' when completing a transfer, if it costs you. A win win situation!

[LiquidFury]

Not so much a saver, more like a 'hoarder'.

I hate spending transfer budgets. It could be better invested in other areas in the club (If the board didn't have their head up their hoop), or made to increase the wage budget. I scour the free agents or £0 unwanted players before splashing cash. I just don't like being held to ransom over transfer fees, so I spend as little as my success allows.

That said, when I've had a few quid to burn, it's not unknown for me to purchase a crap player from some minnow team, just to see what they do with the money. Bradford PA urinated away £23 million before filing for Bankruptcy while they were on the verge of getting back into the Football League.

To contradict myself, I am a huge spender of wage budgets. Like I said, I hate spending money on a transfer, but I have to put it mildly, I urinate away the wage budget as much as I can. If I'm enough under the wage budget to sign a new player (free transfer), I'll go ahead and sign 4 of them instead; and each of them can be justified in my team. It's rare that I ever have transfer money anyway. Lower league clubs seldom do.

I gamble a club's finances on success, and it hasn't often let me down. Yet..!

[Motherlover]

I'm a saver.

I just got promoted to the PL and made 11M on transfers with a weak squad predicted 20th.... I really should learn to splash out more often.

[Bob Sardinia]

I'm a saver with a spending problem... Even at Man City in my current game I do my best to cut dead weight to save on wages and turn a profit (which is surprisingly hard to do) but I also drop big bills atleast once a window to pick up some big name... Hell I almost dropped $90mil for ozil this last window, but didnt wanna pay his wage demand.

[Super Bladesman]

Definitely a spender, though I am trying to be more fiscally responsible this time round. I try to push for facilities and network upgrades, and to produce the best youths I can. What money is left over I will spend on getting in the best young players I can - even if it means investing heavily in a young player who might not come good for a couple of seasons.

[Tactic Master]

Definitely a spender, though I am trying to be more fiscally responsible this time round. I try to push for facilities and network upgrades, and to produce the best youths I can. What money is left over I will spend on getting in the best young players I can - even if it means investing heavily in a young player who might not come good for a couple of seasons.

Youth players are the way forward I always like to get the next big thing too. I haven't often failed either thankfully.

[Ryan_Barker]

Are you a "Spender" or a "Saver"?

Personally I like to spend whatever it takes to sign a player that I like or need. I will also stretch the wage budget as far as it will go. Do you think "spending" is the way forward or "saving" being the way forward?

If your a "spender", how far would you go to sign somebody?

If your a "Saver", what are your limits on transfers and wages?

I think i'm a bit of both. Being an Arsenal fan (heaven forbid) I adopt the Arsene Wenger way of thinking - respectable wage and transfer fees paid. Saying this, I mainly manage smaller teams, AFC Wimbledon for instance and don't have much cash to spend!

I think the maximum i've paid for a player on my AFC Wimbledon save is only £35k, but with wages of £1.4k a week. I've not been blessed with a lot of financial help for obvious reasons, but i wouldn't be spending more than £1.4k on any players wages until i gain promotion

[shaker90]

Always been a huge spender on 11 I spent 72m on Neymar 45m on Ganso and 31m Valbuena, but this year I have just decided to become Port Vale who have no money at all and enjoying it a lot more!!

[Tactic Master]

I've decided i'm half spender, half saver

[Mato]

Spender all the way.

[lukekarts]

I start off as a spender, making my mark on the squad. Then I become a scout, picking up cheap young talent and trying to get my board to invest into the facilities; and relying on 'homegrown/poached' talent for the new few seasons.

[Sheddy]

Spend...weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :-)