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

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

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

From The Wall Street Journal

“They’re on a shoestring budget.”

From Los Angeles Times

"It was all done on a shoestring budget," he said.

From BBC

“We can’t do it on a shoestring budget and be competitive and win at the level that we have won and want to win. It’s something that we’ve been ramping up.”

From Los Angeles Times