the.com/shoestring
A budget so thin it's named after the one thing cheaper than rope.
means Operating with a very small amount of money, just barely enough to get by.
from From the literal shoestring — the thin lace that ties a shoe — used figuratively since the 1800s for anything flimsy or precarious. A 'shoestring budget' or 'shoestring operation' evokes something held together by the cheapest, slenderest possible means, the way a thin lace is the last thing standing between your shoe and falling apart.
- origin
- 1890s slang for razor-thin margins of capital
- literal meaning
- a shoelace, before it meant poverty
- usage
- always paired with budget, travel, or operation
- irony
- shoestrings themselves cost almost nothing