on a shoestring

Idioms  

1. With very limited financial means, as in The newlyweds were living on a shoestring. The precise allusion in this term is unclear. One fanciful theory is that debtors in British prisons would lower a shoe by its laces from a window so as to collect funds from visitors or passers-by. A more likely theory is that it alludes to the slender shape of a shoelace, likening it to slender resources. [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

on a shoestring

It was emblematic of her and Corbet’s then-burgeoning philosophy: of making lavish films on a shoestring, using stunning foreign environments to portray a bygone America and roping crew members and family into the collaboration.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2025

He finally got some funding from Norman Lear himself and shot the movie on a shoestring budget.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 15, 2025

Put together on a shoestring budget with donated clothes, the video went viral after Mukherjee reposted it on his Instagram feed with a heart emoji.

From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2024

That low overhead allowed presses that run on a shoestring to have their books available in independent bookstores and Amazon.

From New York Times ● Apr. 17, 2024

Everything that the Nation of Islam did in those days, from Mr. Muhammad on down, was strictly on a shoestring.

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey