tighten your belt
Cut your spending
Tighten your belt means to reduce spending and live more frugally, usually in response to financial difficulty.
The image is of cinching a belt tighter when you've lost weight from eating less: With the layoffs coming, we'll all have to tighten our belts.
Belt-tightening describes periods of austerity or budget cuts.
- budgetPlan for spending
- frugalSparing with resources
- saveProtect from loss
- economizeReduce expenses deliberately
- pinch penniesSpend as little as possible
cutback · austerity · scrimp · pinch · cut corners · sacrifice · lean · thrifty · ration · bare bones · stretch · penny · count pennies · sparse · struggle · make ends meet · recession · hard times
- clothing idiomsfit like a glove, dressed to the nines, dressed to kill, wear the pants, caught with pants down
- thrift sayingspenny saved, penny wise, pinch pennies, penny pincher, live within means
tighten your beltsplurge
Spend freely, impulsively
live large · throw money around · splash out · loosen the purse strings · spare no expense
tighten your beltlive it up
Enjoy oneself lavishly
live large · feast · pamper yourself · live like a king · overindulge
tight, tighten, tighter, tightest, tightly, tightness, tights, your, yours