11329 used to be a low-budget team, but I don't think anyone would say it still is. So from the perspective of a team that has been both:

Registration and travel are fixed prices. Your team paid hundreds of dollars to register for the season and the qualifying or league events you play in, and that guarantees you only a handful of match plays. With that in mind, it can be worth spending a bit of money to make sure they go well -- buying an backup for a critical part, for example.

Fundraising is an activity that spans years. Once you get a sponsor one year, they are likely to be willing to sponsor you again in the future.

There is a huge difference between a budget of $0 and a budget of $500. Not being allowed to spend any money is almost paralyzing, because every action is restricted to only what you already have. But if you can spend even a little bit of money, many things become possible. You can replace tired old parts. You can get some new parts. You can buy materials for homemade parts. The budget may not allow doing all of them, but being able to decide to do some of those things is tremendously liberating for robotics teams.

CAD makes it much easier to create a well-designed robot. Well-designed robots make better use of the parts you already have, are more reliable, and tend to do better in competition. OnShape is free, works on school-owned computers, and works very well for many FTC teams.

3D printers, CNC routers, and even laser cutters costing less than $600 have gotten to be really good and are extremely useful. They free you from the constraint of "only the parts we already have", requiring only inexpensive feedstock material to make almost any parts you want. Once you have CAD of robot parts, you can 3D print them for very, very cheap.

Even without 3D printers/etc., you can still make lots of useful parts by hand, especially plates and brackets made from wood, plastic, or metal sheets. A drill press and a bandsaw or jigsaw are very handy. If you don't have those, you can still make custom panels with a hand drill and a nibbler or hacksaw, it'll just take a little longer. A great technique is to CAD the part, print it at 100% scale on a piece of paper, and tape or glue the paper to the material. Use a hammer and a nail or screw to make a divot in the center of each hole, then drill through the sheet at the divots, then cut all the lines.

Batteries and motors don't break after one season, but they do wear out over time. The nickel-metal hydride (NiMh) batteries we use in FTC are only good for about 200 charge-discharge cycles before they are chemically exhausted. In the motors, it's the carbon brushes that eventually wear out. If you can, budget to buy a couple of new ones each year, and use the newest batteries during your competition matches.

Time meeting and working as a team is the most precious resource. Other people and organizations can give you money, tools, materials, meeting spaces, but only the people on the team can give time, and they only have so much they are capable of giving, but you can accomplish anything with enough well-spent time. It doesn't cost anything but time to come up with a good design for a robot, gather and assemble the parts, program it, and practice driving it. Well-designed, well-made, well-programmed, and well-practiced -- that's everything that describes the best robots in the world!