Money Expressions

So far in this lesson we’ve been focusing on one expression for each situation in this one.

In this situation I want to share a couple because there are a couple different ones that are really relevant to this situation and can be used in other places as well.

OK so you’re relying on your parents for money that means you don’t have your own money.

Maybe you don’t have a job.

You can’t find a decent job to support yourself.

Support yourself means you can buy your own food you can pay your own rent can buy your own clothes.

This is what it means to support yourself.

Well very simply if you want to express that you don’t have money we often just say that I’m broke I’m totally broke.

B R O K E broke Hey do you want to go get a drink.

No I can’t.

Why not.

I’m broke.

I have no money.

Oh I’ll lend you 20 dollars.

No no that’s OK.

I don’t want to borrow any money I’m broke to stay home.

OK so being broke is not fun having no money is not fun but it’s a common expression and sometimes people add if it’s really a bad situation flat FFO a t flat broke after my vacation to Japan.

I was flat broke.

I had to save up for two years before I could take another trip.

I was flat broke.

OK can be used in a lot of different cases where you want to say that you don’t have any money left right now when we’re in this situation where you rely on your parents at least in America.

I know in some countries relying on your parents and getting money from your parents is fine.

It’s not an issue.

Well in America it is.

I read a news story about a man who was 30 years old and hadn’t moved out of his parent’s home and was sued by his parents for not leaving.

So this is kind of American culture you’ve got to get out and support yourself as soon as possible maybe even as young as 18 years old.

Really.

Really.

Yes.

Yes.

It’s kind of American culture.

So if you find yourself in the situation where you can’t support yourself in American culture at least you might feel like a failure.

You won’t feel good.

Maybe you were doing OK before and then you lost all your money.

Not happy.

OK.

So you can say I’ve really hit rock bottom I’ve really hit rock bottom.

I can’t go lower.

Imagine falling down into the ocean.

You reach the bottom of the ocean.

You can’t go any deeper.

So you’ve hit rock bottom you’re as far down as you can go.

And it’s not a happy thing.

Now it doesn’t have to only be for money.

So broke is only about only about money but hitting rock bottom is more an emotional thing a thing related to your life and the situation of your life.

So you could emotionally be completely unhappy because everything went wrong.

Maybe you have lots of money.

You can still say I hit rock bottom I’ve completely hit rock bottom because for whatever reason you’re extremely depressed you’re extremely sad and you feel like there’s no lower that you can go.

OK so just to be clear that this one broke is for money.

Rock bottom is not.

So maybe there’s a man who lost his lost his job still has money but lost his job then his girlfriend broke up with him and he still has his own apartment but he just feels like he doesn’t know what to do with his life.

He has money but he might say I just feel like I’ve hit rock bottom and I don’t know what to do with myself.

That would be a common thing someone in that situation might say it’s emotional.

Negative negative.

So as a response to that friend might say well you hit rock bottom it’s it’s all uphill from here.

That means it can’t get any worse.

And that’s something that people will say too well it can’t get any worse.

Look at the bright side.

It can’t get any worse.

It’s all uphill from here.

If it’s really rock bottom OK that would be really optimistic.

That’s looking at the bright side looking at the bright side of something means you’re looking at that.

Good point.

That’s there.

Even if it’s very small and if it is very small there’s a very tiny positive thing about a very bad situation.

We often call that the silver as I LV are lining lining silver lining is that if it can’t get worse if you’ve really hit rock bottom then all you have to do is pick yourself up go out there and get a new job got a new girlfriend.

It’s all uphill from here.

It’s going to get better.

That’s the silver lining that’s the silver lining.

Yeah maybe you’re right.

Thanks.

You made me feel better you made me feel better.

OK.

So these are the expressions that we can use in negative situations.

These two side and Silver Lining are positive aspects of the negative situation.

The good points of the bad situation and the bad feeling.

I’d like to stick with this situation for one more expression because I think we need to focus a little bit more on money.

We talked about being broke which means you have no money left but there’s a more general one that can be used to talk about a bad financial situation.

Because saying I’m broke is a little strong and some people might not be willing to express something that directly so we could say here it was it was really difficult to make ends meet.

So I had to move back home.

So maybe I was living alone I was living in my own apartment I was doing ok but things got worse.

Maybe my financial situation my financial or money situation was not great.

So I was having trouble making ends meet.

That might mean I have some money but I can’t pay all my bills.

I have some money but I can’t completely support myself.

So I had to move back in with my parents couldn’t make ends meet.

Another common expression this one is only only for money.

This one is used to talk about being able to afford whatever lifestyle you have.

If you can make ends meet then maybe you don’t need to move in with your parents but if you cannot make ends meet you may need to move in with your parents and in American culture that’s generally not a good thing.

People might judge you negatively although in lots of other places in the world it’s fine it’s fine.

It’s interesting how different cultures are different and judge things differently.

I told some of my my friends in China the story about the man who who was sued by his parents for living at home too long and they couldn’t believe that it was real because generally speaking in China if you live with your parents that’s a good thing because it means you’re willing to take care of them and generally parents are very happy to have their kids living with them even if they’re 30 maybe maybe even older now that’s of course changing a little bit in the modern modern era but it’s still quite different.

Americans they generally focus on being very independent is a good word to use independent.

All right let’s go on and look at another situation and learn another useful expression.