you best bet is to look for a time when there are less people bidding, be this later in season, different time of day, whatever.... my first few seasons I found late at night to be good on my server, but this varies. Early in the season is hardest because everyone wants players, best time to sell though. Always put the player you want in favorites so you can monitor who has bid before you decide you spend token.

My average token cost to buy guys is about 5 tokens, I haven't bought a scout, and only every went over 25 tokens for a player once, and i often get players for 1 or 2.