beyond one's means

Idioms  

1. Too costly for one, more than one can afford. For example, A second vacation this year is well beyond our means. The noun means here signifies “resources at one's disposal,” a usage current since Shakespeare's time, as in Measure for Measure (2:2): “Let her have needful, but not lavish means.” [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

It remains both taboo and important to perform this often tacky opulence nonetheless: to spend advances on expensive cars, clothes and chains, to live beyond one’s means.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 1, 2023

They are also spooked by the temptation that credit cards offer to spend beyond one’s means.

From New York Times • Aug. 14, 2016

Before the crisis, some families and nations did borrow to finance consumption — a good definition of living beyond one’s means.

From Salon • May 5, 2013

Amar Bhide, a Tufts University business professor and author of A Call for Judgment, also blames rampant borrowing and the widespread acceptance of living beyond one's means.

From Time • Feb. 9, 2011

To live beyond one’s means leads to indebtedness.

From A Little Garrison A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day by Bilse, Fritz Oswald