The last big money buy for Real Madrid was Bellingham and between the summer transfer of 2020 till date, Real Madrid has spent a total of €303.5 million on purchase of players. That's to say, in the last 5 years, Real Madrid spent this amount of money and had sales of players within this same period at €301.35 million. I'm just marveled at this because before now Real Madrid was known for spending big but now seems it has changed and it's the other teams that are the big spenders now.
Real Madrid now resorts to convincing players they're going to acquire beforehand and waiting another year. They did this with Mbappé and their last signing, TAA. Now, Real Madrid can convince a player with one year left on his contract to sign him for the following year in advance. This way, they don't have to pay a fee to the player's club. They signed a player like Mbappé for free. They only paid the contract fee and the signing fee to bring him to the team. The biggest factor that strengthens Real Madrid's position here is the club's reputation. Every player in the world wants to wear the Real Madrid jersey.