Scouts are rip off, AVOID!!

Negotiations are not that useful unless you're at really high levels or have tons of tokens.
For example...
I have over 1,100 tokens, I will be happy to throw you some tokens for your player that I can't live without. This will cost me about 25 tokens, but I don't care, I have plenty.
Can you do this? No, not if you expect to have any left for the rest of your team.

Most managers will not accept less than 3 tokens for any decent player, that'll cost you 14 on average.
If I have a player that is really good. I won't accept any offer since I don't need the tokens. If I have a bad player that I'd give away cheaply, you probably don't want him.

At high levels if you have the tokens, then negotiations are useful because getting a quality young player for 20 tokens isn't that bad a deal.

The best you can do at lower levels is try to get players for 1 token, preferably young players, that are just barely 5 star. Those will not generate a ton of interest. You might THINK that going for 3 and 4 star players is easier, but not true, because they will get lots of attention from those at lower levels. This is what I did at first, it wasn't until later I had enough tokens to really fight for players.

As for farming tokens, there are plenty of ways. Be creative!
For example, I wanted to get my mom some flowers for Christmas. I bought them via. an offer on T11, same price and quality as anywhere else, but 110 tokens in my pocket.
I was going to sign up for something that I saw on TV, and what do you know... they had an offer for it on T11! That's 120 tokens for me!

Those didn't cost me a dime, I was going to buy those things anyway, I just got essentially a pile of free tokens!

I am still very conservative with my tokens and avoid paying more than 20 for any player on auction. At your level, no reason to pay more than a couple, especially at times of the day/season when lots of nordgens appear. Just make sure you have enough money to get the best ones!! Many times I get a super expensive 18-19 yr old for 1 token because managers just flat out don't have the cash for it, or don't want to invest so much into 1 player.

So stock up on money as well, it'll make your life much easier.

Hope that helps!!