Real Life English: Money Idioms

Is your job a gravy train that gives you plenty of free time to study your English? Or are you a bit of a cheapskate that doesn’t want to pay for classes, but improving your English is still important to you?

Make Your English More Exciting

No matter what your economic situation is, it’s important to know some idioms about money if you’re going to travel to a capitalist country like the U.S.A., the U.K., Canada, or Australia where money makes the world go ’round!

A broad vocabulary is a vital part of learning any language, so today let’s enrich our English vocabulary with eight fantastic expressions related to dough (money).

You can really surprise native speakers by mastering and using these expressions, and knowing them will make you the top banana of other English learners.

Let’s improve our English together so you can really bring home the bacon! Let’s learn Real Life English!

These amazing illustrations come from Kaplan. They will really help you to remember each expression. If you love this and it helps you improve your English, then check out their site!

Use These Expressions in Real Life! 

Let’s take our learning to the next level with some examples:

1. McDonald’s lost 500 million bucks (dollars) when they realized their accountant didn’t balance the books correctly.

2. Who brings home the bacon in your family, your mom or your dad?

3. In most countries, it’s still traditional for a man to pay for a woman when they go out on a date. But in the United States, it’s becoming more and more common to go dutch.

4. I’ve heard teaching English abroad can be quite the gravy train, but I don’t believe it.

5. Linda and John are building up a nest egg to buy a vacation home in Spain.

6. Be careful, cooking the books can get you in a lot of trouble with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).

7. Dany isn’t very good at her job, so he boss gave her a golden handshake and forced her into early retirement. But she’s not complaining, she can finally afford that vacation to Rio!

8. I’m worried Jillian thinks I’m a cheapskate because  when we go out on dates we always go dutch. I can’t afford to be a gentleman with what my job pays me!

Improve Your English Even More

Want to take your learning even further? Then remember to put these expressions in Anki to help you memorize them and start using them every day. Don’t have Anki? Learn more about this magnificent tool here.

If you enjoyed this article, then go check out the other great resources Kaplan has to offer.

Want to practice? Make your own examples with these expressions and post them in the comments below. We’ll correct you if you make mistakes.