verb phrase🎓 English idiom

make ends meet

to manage with limited money

What it means

To make ends meet means to manage to live on the money you have, with just enough income to cover your basic expenses. It usually implies financial difficulty, where there's little or nothing left over.

Examples

  • With rising prices, many families struggle to make ends meet.
  • She took a second job just to make ends meet.
  • After the pay cut, making ends meet became a real challenge.
  • They live carefully, but they barely make ends meet each month.

Where it comes from

The phrase derives from older expressions about making 'both ends meet,' likely a metaphor of balancing income and expenditure so the two ends of a budget come together; it dates to the 17th century.

Related idioms

#cost an arm and a leg#pay through the nose#there's no such thing as a free lunch#a dime a dozen

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