bare necessities

Idioms  

1. Just sufficient resources, with nothing to spare. For example, The room was furnished with just the bare necessities—bed, table, chair. This idiom uses bare in the sense of “mere, and nothing else,” a usage dating from about 1200.

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Example Sentences

The money, which once allowed her to fill a grocery cart, now only covers the bare necessities.

From Slate • Apr. 24, 2026

It was a decent home at first, close enough to her job downtown and with all the bare necessities for daily living.

From BBC • Jan. 2, 2026

An unexpected visitor showed up at a Petersburg, Alaska, grocery store looking for the bare necessities this week — a black bear cub.

From Washington Times • Oct. 21, 2023

Replacing the bare necessities is “all-consuming and exhausting,” Klamm recalls, of the days after the firestorm.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 13, 2023

After Mom and I finished putting away my suitcase of bare necessities, she said to me, “Why don’t you go out and explore, honey?”

From "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" by Dusti Bowling