Money management is key to any team's success whether at just having fun level all the way up to professional level. This article will show you how to successfully manage money: When you should save your money and when you should buy, both as CT and T. I will also include a few tips, and also how to play save rounds and how to counter enemy save rounds.

CT-side

You'll often see teams at any level not buy anything for specific rounds. This is because they save their money from that round, to get enough to successfully launch a reasonable offense or defense the round after. On CT a regular rifleman kit consists of:

• Colt: $3100
• Armour: $1000
• Defusekit: $200
• Grenades = $200-1000
• Ammunition = $60-180

That means you need $4560 at the very least to have a full buy. Now, let's do some math. Each round lost gives $1400 as CT and each round won gives $3250 (+$300 for every frag).

This means that if more than 3 players die on first buy round, 3 full buys are not possible on the next round. Consequently the whole team can't be fully equipped, as only 2 out of 5 can drop weapons. To take a somewhat mixed round will decrease the chance of getting the defensive kills, which are so important to the economy. This is why you see teams saving their guns when a retake of a site is unlikely to favor them winning. The reasons for this are:

• Loss of equipment worth around $4800 if they die
• If they are saving next round, the extra equipment gives them the ability to take a few of the offensive side out.

T-side 

Now let's go on to the offense! Terrorists are, money wise, at a much larger advantage than CT, because of the fact that a defusekit isn't really required - and AK's are $600 cheaper than Colts. Also the money gained from each round is favouring the Terrorists - and they can even earn money on planting the bomb. For terrorists a full buy consists of:

• AK47: $2500
• Armour: $1000
• Grenades: $200-1000
• Ammunition: $80-240

That means a full buy for the T-side is only $3780. Unlike CT who is spending $4860. Now for the mechanics on T: Getting the bomb down is pretty much vital in any round you play, because it will give you $2300 instead of $1400 if you lose the round. This means that if bomb is planted, you will only need one save round for a full buy.