CHECK YOUR
ENGLISH VOCABULARY FOR PHRASAL VERBS AND IDIOMS
IDIOMS AND OTHER
EXPRESSIONS USED FOR TALKING ABOUT MONEY
Exercise 1:
Look at the idioms in bold in sentences 1 – 22, and
decide if the people:
(A) have a lot of money.
(B) have very little or no money.
1
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Steve is up to his ears in debt.
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12
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Mike is made of money.
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2
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Kevin is on the dole.
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13
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Don is penniless.
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3
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Jamie has made his pile.
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14
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Judy has money to burn.
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4
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Sue can't make ends meet.
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15
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Pete is broke.
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5
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Jacqueline is stinking rich.
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16
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Tim has more money than sense.
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6
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Mark's boss pays him chickenfeed.
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17
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Alison is rolling in it.
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7
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Tarquin is loaded.
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18
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Bob is skint.
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8
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Laurence is hard up.
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19
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Andy is down and out.
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9
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Christine is well off.
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20
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Jeanette is feeling
flush.
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10
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Brenda is in the red.
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21
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Charles is raking it in.
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11
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John is strapped for cash.
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22
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Annabel is a bit down-at-heel.
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Exercise 2:
Look at the idioms in bold in sentences 23 –
38, and decide if the people:
(A) have paid a lot of money for something.
(B) have paid a small amount of money for something.
23
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The shop sold us our hi-fi for a rock-bottom price.
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24
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A pizza and a glass of wine cost us
£10. It was daylight
robbery.
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25
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We paid next to nothing for the holiday.
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26
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It cost us the earth to get our car repaired.
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27
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It didn't break the
bank to travel business class to New York.
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28
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I paid £6 for a hot dog and a Coke.
What a rip-off!
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29
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My new car cost me a packet.
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30
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It cost us an arm and a leg to change our flight
times.
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31
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We paid a tidy sum for our new computer.
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32
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The rent on my house is a bit steep.
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33
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How much was my new camera? Well, it didn't come cheap.
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34
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The restaurant served excellent food, at a price.
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35
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This suit set me back a bit.
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36
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This home cinema system was going for a song.
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37
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We had an excellent meal, and it was dirt cheap.
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38
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I paid good money to stay in this hotel.
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ANSWER KEY
Exercise 1:
1. B (If you are up to your ears in
debt, you owe a lot of money)
2. B (If you are on the dole, you are
unemployed and getting money from the government)
3. A (Someone who has made their pile
has made a lot of money, usually over a long period of time)
4. B (If you cannot make ends meet, you
are finding it difficult to pay for important things like your house, food,
clothes, etc)
5. A (Someone who is stinking rich is
extremely rich)
6. B (If your boss pays you
chickenfeed, he / she pays you very little money. We can also say that your
boss pays you peanuts)
7. A (Someone who is loaded is very
rich)
8. B (Someone who is hard up doesn't
have much money and finds it difficult to make ends meet)
9. A (If you are well off, you have enough
money to live a comfortable life)
10. B (If someone is in the red, they
have less than £0 in their bank account and owe the bank money as a result. If
they have more than £0 in their account, they are in the black)
11. B (Someone who is strapped for cash
needs money. This is usually a temporary situation: "Can I pay you
tomorrow? I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment".)
12. A (Someone who is made of money is very
rich)
13. B (If you are penniless, you have
no money at all: this word comes from penny, the smallest unit of British
currency)
14. A (As this expression suggests, someone
who has money to burn has so much money that they could burn it if they
wanted to)
15. B (If you are broke, you have no
money. This is usually a temporary situation: "I'm completely broke and
I don't get paid for another week")
16. A (Someone who has more money than
sense has a lot of money, but often wastes it on things that they don't
really need or want)
17. A (This expression has a similar
meaning to number 14)
18. B (This has a similar meaning to
number 15, but is more informal)
19. B (Someone who is down and out has
no money and no home, and is probably living rough on the streets) 20. A (If
you are feeling flush, you are not rich, but you have more money than usual,
perhaps because you have won something: "I'm feeling flush: let me buy
you dinner tonight")
21. A (If you are raking it in, you are
getting a lot of money for doing your job)
22. B (Someone who is described as
down-at-heel is poor and looks poor: their clothes are probably dirty and in
bad condition, their hair is untidy, etc)
Exercise 2:
23. B (We could also say at a giveaway
price)
24. A
25. B
26. A (We could also say It cost us a
bomb…)
27. B (Break the bank is usually used
in the negative: "It won't break the bank to eat here")
28. A (This very informal expression
can also be a phrasal verb, to rip someone off: "Don't buy a car from
him, he'll rip you off", "I don't believe it, we've been ripped off
again!")
29. A (We can also say a small packet
or an absolute packet. Alternatively, we could use the word fortune: "My
new car cost me a small fortune!". Some people also use the expression a
king's ransom)
30. A (This expression is very similar
to cost the earth or cost a bomb)
31. A
32. A
33. A
34. A
35. A
36. B (Something that is going for a
song is very cheap: it is a bargain)
37. B (dirt cheap = extremely cheap)
38. A Another popular expression in
English is pay through the nose. This is used when you have spent a lot of
money on something: "We paid through the nose for our tickets to see the
match".
There are several very informal words
for money in English. These include: dough, dosh; readies; wonga; spondulics;
the wherewithal (= the money that you need to do something: "We would
love to take a holiday, but we haven't got the wherewithal". This is
less informal than the other words here.)
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