How much money do you give your players?

Obviously the answer is going to be some variation of "it depends", but I'm really looking for any general advice you can give on managing money and rewards (especially at lower levels i.e. level 1 -2) as I'm fairly new to this. . 

In terms of how much I award them, my goals are:

1) Money should not just be a measure of how difficult the quest was. It should be a resource that they are always in need of.

2) Keep cash flow relevant. It should be a factor that influences their decisions. 

3) Make sure they can't afford everything they want. They should have to make careful decisions about what equipment and gear they can afford. Buying X, should mean they can't afford Y.

4) Encourage them to be creative, think outside the box, make use of their surroundings, find substitutes for things they can't afford, and alternative solutions when they can't afford what they need.

5) Make sure they have enough to rest in safe comfortable lodgings on a regular basis.

6) Make sure they're always trying to earn enough money FOR something. i.e. "we need another X gold pieces so we can buy..." rather than "Yay, look at all the gold we have. We're rich."

I gave my party a dragon horde in the opening arc of the campaign. They have used it to rebuild the family manor of the cleric, and turn it into an adventuring school. I also gave them a bank, which they used to store their wealth, making it a bit harder to make purchases anywhere.

The main challenge you should face is "how much is available to buy?". Magic items are rare in my world, and many are semi-mundane. You're unlikely to find a market stall which is selling anything particularly powerful. Healing potions are available, in limited supply, as are other alchemical and single-use creations. The majority of weapons which the party has were found in various treasures and ruins and dungeons, or made by the party artificer.

I think the main thing is to give them something to do with their money. There's no point giving them tens of thousands if there's nothing to buy, and there's no point giving them nothing if you've made a whole economic system, and there's no point giving them all the magic items they would want as loot, whilst also giving them tons of gold, because they won't be able to spend it!

Eh. I give my players lots of gold. 

But i also have a chart that tells them how many magic items of each rarity they can have. So doesnt matter how much gold you have, you cant buy the magic items until you reach a certain level. That way, i dont have to worry about money making things too wonky.

They spend their money on their bastions and theyve also done things to help the city they operate out of. I present problems that come out of being attacked by outsiders, a fire in the city, and so on, and see if they want to do something. Almost every time, they step up and help, including using lots of their gold to pay for a new library and so on.

I tend to give my players a good amount of gold from their adventures, however the things they want to buy are pretty expensive. They feel like they are earning a lot ("thousands of gold, yay!) but the things they actually would want to buy are also pricey. This means that they can usually buy any number of common items (ball bearings, lanterns, torches, grappling hooks, rope, etc) for their wild plans and shenanigans, but the more powerful or useful magic items they can get one or two during a "shopping episode", not buy out the entire store.

The balance (and I am NOT an expert on this by any means) is not about giving them X amount of gold, but about giving them things they want to spend money on. If they have 500,000 gold but nothing interesting to purchase, then the gold does no good. 

That's partly why I want to get to a point in my campaign where they can build/operate a keep. I have Strongholds and Followers by Matt Colville but I haven't had a chance to use it really in-game as the party has been moving around so much (my fault for having plot points all over the world). When they get to that point, they can invest their gold in their stronghold as a sort of side-game.

I put medium sized stashes in each dungeon, when it makes sense, of course. I give each player about 50 gold in a dungeon and I usually hide some more loot. They build up money, but not too fast, and they feel rewarded when they discover the hidden loot.