#15- 20 Slang Words, Phrasal Verbs & Idioms for Money & Finances

Grab the episode Study Guide right << HERE >> that has the full transcript, definitions and examples AND practice activities.

In this episode of the "Real Life English with Gabby" podcast, I’m teaching you over 20 slang words, phrasal verbs, and idioms related to money and finances. You’ll be learning terms like "living paycheck to paycheck," "fork over," "tight budget," "making ends meet," and many others. Overall, this episode aims to equip listeners with practical English vocabulary related to money and finances, helping you to engage in authentic conversations and understand real American culture.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] On today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast, I'll be teaching you over 20 slang words, phrasal verbs, and idioms for money and finances. Vocabulary like "fork over," "shell out," "stay afloat," "make ends meet," "a penny pincher," and more. Let's get to it.

Hey there, welcome to the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations. Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in.

Hey there. Thanks so much for listening to episode 15, all about [00:01:00] money and finances. Today I have a great episode for you and some awesome financial vocabulary. After listening to this episode, you'll be able to talk about money, budgets, salaries, savings, and so much more. The topic of money is so important in English. It's very common in conversation to talk about saving money, investing money, crypto, stock market, what bank accounts we've opened for our kids, which bank account is going to give us the biggest savings. In a capitalistic society like the United States, we are very financially aware of everything and we're very open about finances and resources that we use to improve our financial situations. I don't want to say that everything in the U [00:02:00] S is about money, but in the US, everybody works really hard to be financially secure. Everybody wants to get multiple streams of income, meaning a lot of different ways to make money. And we sometimes prioritize our financial security to other things. So we may give up some of the more fun things in life in order to make money, which is why the United States has a very workaholic culture where a lot of people work too hard and work too much.

But that is another topic for another podcast episode. But yes, I chose this topic because it will help you have authentic and real conversations with other English speakers about finances. Today, I'm teaching you 20 words and expressions. Let me tell you what these are. "Money doesn't grow on trees," "to live paycheck to paycheck," "to make ends meet," "fork over," "a tight budget," "cut corners," "max out," "stay afloat," "pay off," "a penny pincher," "shell out," [00:03:00] "throw money down the drain," "put aside," "break even," "living beyond your means," "I make a killing," "big bucks," "cash in on," "to be broke," "from rags to riches." And I'm also going to throw in some slang names for money. Stay tuned for that at the end of the episode.

Before I get into the story, I just wanted to remind you to get the study guide that goes along with today's episode. The study guide is going to have the full transcript. It's going to have all the definitions of the words with example sentences, and it's going to have a practice activity so that you can practice what I teach you in the episode. In order to get that study guide, just go to the episode description and click on the link. All right.

In order to teach you these words, I'm going to be telling you a story of rags to riches. You'll find out what rags to riches means shortly. Listen to me use the new vocabulary through the story that I'm about to read. It'll show you how to use these vocabulary words and expressions in context. And then after the story, I'm going to explain the meanings of all the new vocabulary. All right. Here we go.

Leah [00:05:00] grew up in a small town right outside of Lyon, France. She grew up in a family of five and lived with both her parents and two younger siblings. Things were difficult financially for her family, and she learned at a young age that money doesn't grow on trees. They lived paycheck to paycheck and often struggled to make ends meet. Despite their financial struggles, she always dreamed of a better life and was very determined to become successful.

Leah dreamed of moving out of her small town and into a big city. It was actually her dream to study in New York someday. She worked hard all through high school so that she could make her dream come true. [00:06:00] And when it was time to attend university, she was accepted to an American university in New York City. She got a scholarship for her tuition, but she had to pay for her own living expenses.

Unfortunately, life in New York City is very expensive. And so she was forced to get two roommates and fork over a lot of rent money each month. Her high living expenses forced her to live on a very tight budget and cut corners wherever she could. The first year of school, she had to max out her credit cards just to pay her bills and stay afloat.

She found a job and worked nights and weekends so that she could pay off her credit card debts. She had to become a penny pincher, and she worked tirelessly to pay her rent and shell out whatever money she could [00:07:00] spare to go towards her bills. While her friends were spending their money on parties and throwing their money down the drain, Leah put aside every extra dollar, determined to save for her future.

By her third year, junior year, she was earning enough money to break even financially, since she was careful not to live beyond her means. By her senior year, she was out of debt and she was able to close most of her credit card accounts. A few months before graduation, she started interviewing for jobs and got a high-paying job in the city as an analyst for an international company.

She worked extremely hard at her new job and succeeded quickly. She made a killing because of her strong work ethic. She was promoted to manager within a year, started making big bucks, and was able to cash in on her years of hard work. No longer broke, Leah was able to send money to her family back in France and help them get out of debt as well. Leah's rags to riches story truly shows how hard work and determination make anything possible.

What a nice story of someone who succeeded using hard work and determination. A lot of people would refer to this as the American dream. And I would say this definitely seems like it is the American dream, where someone can start at the bottom and work their way up to success.

All right. So let's talk about the definitions.

Okay. First, it says that her [00:09:00] family lived paycheck to paycheck and that she learned at a very young age that money doesn't grow on trees. I've heard from my students that most of your languages actually have the same expression. Is that true? I'd love to hear. Let me know if you can. So money doesn't grow on trees means that money is not easily accessible. You can't just plant a seed and make money grow so that you have easy access to it because money doesn't grow on trees. Leah's family struggled and they lived paycheck to paycheck. This is an extremely common expression in English. And this expression means to rely on each paycheck to pay all of your expenses without being able to save money for the future. So basically, this is having just enough income to cover immediate needs. I also found out something from my students recently that in many countries, people get paid once per month or monthly. In the USA, most jobs get paid bi-weekly, meaning every other week. I have heard of very few companies that pay monthly. Some companies pay weekly, actually. When I had one of my first jobs in college, I worked at a retail clothing store and I got paid weekly. But most jobs here get paid bi-weekly every other week.

The next expression is that her family had a hard time making ends meet. Making ends meet is to have enough money to pay your [00:11:00] bills and manage your finances in such a way that you can meet your financial needs. Make ends meet is making your money coming in pay for all of your expenses.

Fork over is a really interesting phrasal verb. Most of you have probably never heard of fork over. This is when you pay money reluctantly, meaning you don't want to. For example, in the story, Lea lives in New York City, my hometown, which is very expensive. Most New Yorkers have to live with roommates or a roommate in order to save money and afford their housing. She's upset because she has to pay a lot of money for rent. So she's forking it over. She's giving it reluctantly or hesitantly. She doesn't want to. And usually fork over is a very high [00:12:00] amount like, oh my gosh, can you believe I had to fork over $400 to repair my car? I'm really upset that I have to pay this money.

The next expression is a tight budget. A budget is a financial plan. So if you have a budget or if you budget your money, that means that you have a plan for your money and official plan. A tight budget or a strict budget is when your financial plan has a lot of limitations on spending. All of your expenses are watched very closely so that you don't overspend or spend too much money.

Next, we have cut corners. Cut corners is to reduce costs. Sometimes it means taking a shortcut in order to save money. A lot of times this decreases your quality of life or your living standards. We use this actually a lot for businesses where businesses are struggling to make a profit. So they cut corners.

Next, we have the phrasal verb max out. Max out is often used with credit cards or loans. And max out means that you reach the maximum limit. So if you max out your credit card, let's say you have a $5,000 spending limit. You have spent $5,000 or $4,999. You have maxed out the credit card and you cannot use it anymore.

Next, we have the expression to stay afloat. Okay. So first off, afloat is when you're able to stay above the water. So if you're in the ocean and you stay at the top of the water. You are afloat or you [00:14:00] are floating. So if we think about this in financial terms, to stay afloat means to survive financially, but it's often with difficulty. If you're struggling to survive, but you're managing to do it and you're avoiding financial failure, then we say you are staying afloat. We also use this for businesses. So an example would be during COVID. Many businesses struggled to stay afloat.

Next, we have a phrasal verb pay off. Remember that phrasal verbs have a lot of meanings. Okay. Like some phrasal verbs could have like eight or nine meanings. In this context, payoff is to repay a debt or loan in full. So if I owe $5,000 on my credit card, I pay off all $5,000 so that I don't owe any other money. Typically, the word payoff, we use with loan or credit card or something else like that.

Next, we have a noun. And this is what we refer to someone as a penny pincher. Okay. To pinch is like to squeeze. Okay. I want you to visualize that you're taking a penny and you're squeezing it and trying to get more money out of the penny. That's what it means when we call someone a penny pincher. So this is someone who is extremely cheap. And they carefully, very carefully save and manage their money. In the story, Lea is forced to be a penny pincher because she's on a really tight budget.

Next, we have another phrasal verb, shell out. Firstly, let me just say, shell out is almost identical to fork over. Because shell out means to spend or pay money often reluctantly. I guess shell out would be only really for large amounts. Her parents had to shell out $20,000 for her wedding.

All right. Next, we have to throw money down the drain. Okay. Firstly, what is a drain? When you turn the water on, in your kitchen, in your bathroom, in your backyard, the water goes down somewhere. You'll even see it on the street. When it rains, the water goes down the drain. The drain is the opening that is connected to pipes. So water comes out of the faucet or out of the sky, goes into the drain and the drain connects to [00:17:00] pipes that connect it to a big gathering of water. Throwing money down the drain. If you want to visualize this literally would be you wasting money on something that brings no benefit. It has no value. So I'm just going to parties and I'm spending all this money. It's not going anywhere. That's throwing money down the drain.

Next, we have put aside, this is a phrasal verb and put aside just means to save money or to reserve money for future use. Maybe we're saving money for a specific purpose. So I have to put aside $20 to give my sister tomorrow. Or we're putting aside money for our vacation in the fall.

Next is the expression break even. Break even means to have your income or salary equal your expenses. There's no profit and there's no loss. So if you make $4,000 per month and you spend $4,000 a month, then you break even. This is very common to use for businesses because businesses often talk about profits and losses, but we also can use it for our own financial situation.

Next, we have living beyond your means. This is an expression that means you spend more money than you earn. So you make $4,000 per month in salary, but you spend $5,000 per month. So maybe you need credit cards. You have to do a whole lot of things to survive every month. We also use this for people that have a very excessive lifestyle where they spend a lot of money.

So maybe someone inherited or got $500,000 because one of their parents died. And they're spending so much money all the time. They're living beyond their means because their money is going to be gone very shortly.

Okay. The next expression is to make a killing. This has nothing to do with murder. Don't worry, make a killing actually means to make a large profit or earn a lot of money in a very short time. Imagine that, I invest. A thousand dollars in cryptocurrency. And crypto goes up. And I triple my investment. I take the money out. I just made a killing on crypto. So again, often it's very quickly, very unexpected. But it's a large profit.

Next is the expression. Big bucks, big bucks means a large amount of money. Very significant. Salary or [00:20:00] profits. She's making the big bucks now as an analyst in New York city. This means she's got a really good salary.

Next, we have cash in on. This is a three-word phrasal verb. And to cash in on something is to profit or benefit from a situation. If I did something, if I helped my neighbor. And, my neighbor told me, okay. I owe you whenever you need a favor. Let me know. I would say it's time for me to cash in on the favor that my neighbor owes me. I'm going to profit or benefit from the situation.

Next, we have a slang, word to be broke. This is when you have no money. So we, we use this word all the time in New York because things are so expensive here. So maybe your friends will say, Hey, let's go out this weekend. And you're like, oh, sorry. I can't I'm broke. When I [00:21:00] tell you, this is such a common word here. Especially amongst young people, college students. It's very common.

Okay. And lastly, we have from rags to riches. So I mentioned that it's a rags to riches story. So rags in this context are clothes that are all ripped up. Very bad condition. Just think about the kind of clothes. That a lot of homeless people have to wear. They're very old, they're ripped, they're dirty. Those are rags. So rags to riches is a person who was experiencing poverty. And then it's their journey to success and wealth. Rags to riches, we use this very commonly in stories. Or if we're interviewing someone who made their own success in life, we say it's a rags to riches story.

All right. So we just finished talking about 20 new vocabulary words and expressions, but I promised to also tell you. Slang words for money. So here we go. Okay. We have money, then we have cash. Hey, you have any cash on you? But cash is like the physical money.

Okay. So physical money is cash. Like someone on the street asked me for a dollar and I'm like, I'm sorry, I have no cash. I only have card. Then we have bucks. Bucks is extremely common. We use this all the time. It means dollars. So someone might say, Hey, do you have five bucks? We are more likely to say bucks than dollars. And then. We've got about six other words. Really? We have like 50 words depending on what rep song you're listening to. But, dough. Paper. Green because American money is green. Moolah. Bread. And cheddar. These words aside from cash and books are the most common slang words for money. So again, dough. Paper. Green Moolah bread cheddar.

All right.

Well, that's a wrap for today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. Be sure to download today's study guide so that you can learn how to use this vocabulary confidently. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more weekly adventures in English learning. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a review.

Thanks so much for tuning in.