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

Sri Lankans are struggling to access the bare necessities like food, fuel, medicine, cooking gas and even toilet paper and matches.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 5, 2022

This is the story I believe in: When God was a child, the Rift Valley cradled a caldron of bare necessities, and out of it walked the first humans upright on two legs.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver