hard-up
Short on funds
Hard-up means lacking money or resources, in difficult financial circumstances: We were pretty hard-up after the factory closed.
The term extends to other kinds of scarcity or desperation: hard-up for ideas, so hard-up for company he'd talk to anyone.
It suggests genuine need rather than mere inconvenience.
Lacking any funds
- pennilessCompletely without money
- destituteUtterly without means
- cash-strappedLacking available money
- povertySevere lack of resources
skint · strapped · indigent · bankrupt · insolvent · needy · penury · hand-to-mouth
Extremely serious or urgent
- urgentNeeding immediate attention
- pressedPushed or smoothed flat
- straitenedMade financially tight
- distressedSuffering emotional turmoil
anxious · crisis · critical · grave · pinched · squeezed · rock-bottom
broke
Lacking any funds
- pennilessCompletely without money
- destituteUtterly without means
- cash-strappedLacking available money
poverty · skint · strapped · indigent · bankrupt · insolvent · needy · penury · hand-to-mouth · underprivileged
dire
Extremely serious or urgent
- urgentNeeding immediate attention
- pressedPushed or smoothed flat
- straitenedMade financially tight
distressed · anxious · crisis · critical · grave · pinched · squeezed · rock-bottom
scrimping
Excessive thrift, stingy saving
- budgetingAllocating funds systematically
- economizingReducing expenditures deliberately
- stretchingExtending muscles or material
surviving · tight · squeezing · juggling · rationing · coping · managing · skimping · sparing
- wealth statuspoor, rich, wealthy, affluent, middle-class
- financesmoney, affluence, cash, bankrupt, income
- povertypoverty line, poor, poverty rate, impoverished, generational poverty