Slang Phrases for English Conversation Wealth Money
Hey I’m Emma from mmmEnglish!
If you’re cashed up or getting by,
loaded, or sitting on a gold mine,
I wonder
if you can guess what today’s lesson will focus on.
I’ve got seventeen different English expressions
that will help you to talk about wealth.
Now that is a tricky English word to pronounce, wealth.
It’s like well with a ‘th’ on the end.
Keep an eye on that tongue.
Wealth.
Wealth is an abundance of valuable things including
but not only including money.
And conversations about money can be awkward
and uncomfortable but they don’t have to be.
We’re gonna go through some great expressions today
to help you talk about having a lot of money
and also a lack of money as well.
All the phrases I’m sharing today are used
in conversational English.
You’ll hear them spoken often and you’ll read them often
in books or in articles about money and wealth and
finances.
And an awesome way to hear natural expressions
as they’re used in context
is to listen to audiobooks on Audible.
It’s even better to grab
a physical copy of the book as well
so that you can see the words as they’re spoken,
helps you to recognise the sounds that are used
for new words and expressions that you come across
and practise using them in context.
Audible offer a free trial so you can get your first book
completely free and try it out without stress.
If you don’t like it, you can just cancel
before the end of your first month.
If you want to specifically focus on vocabulary
to do with wealth and money,
I’ve made some recommendations
down in the description box below
for some great audiobooks that I recommend about
this topic.
You might have noticed but there are so many different
expressions that we use to talk about
money and wealth in English.
And they can vary quite a bit between countries, we use
lots of slang and informal expressions,
lots of idioms as well.
So we’re gonna get started today with some
expressions for wealth when you or when someone
has a lot of money and a lot of these expressions
are really useful when talking about
other people’s wealth because we don’t
really talk about our own wealth
very often right? It’s not really a good idea to talk about
your own wealth in English.
It sounds kind of pretentious or rude
but we love talking about other people’s wealth
just not our own.
Is that the same in your country as well?
Do people talk about how much money they earn
or how wealthy they are openly? Or not?
I’m sure you already know that in English
when people have lots of money
we say that they are rich, right?
It’s really really common to say that someone is rich
but saying that they’re rich or saying that they
have a lot of money can sound a little rude or a little
crass, maybe even jealous.
So a more polite, more acceptable way of saying that
someone has a lot of money is to say that they’re
well-off.
So can you hear when I say that quickly,
the link between the ’ll' in well and the ‘o’ in off.
Well-off.
So this is like an indirect way of saying
that someone is doing well financially.
From the way that Paula’s talking about her new
boyfriend, it sounds like he’s pretty well off.
If you’re speaking more informally then you can
explain that someone has a lot of money
by saying they’re loaded.
They’re loaded.
Now this is definitely slang. It’s
more casual and informal
and it’s usually used only in spoken English.
Our new neighbours have three luxury cars
parked in their driveway. They must be loaded!
As soon as I get my tax return, I’ll be loaded!
I hope.
So this is quite informal slang,
to be filthy rich which is exactly what it sounds like.
To be so rich that it’s just absurd, it’s
a ridiculous amount of wealth, so much wealth.
Now it’s not the most polite expression
to say to someone’s face okay
but if you want to say that someone has an
insane amount of money, then you can definitely say that
they’re filthy rich.
As far as I know, they won the lottery a few years back
and they’ve been filthy rich ever since.
To rake it in. This expression is less
about how much money someone has
and instead about how much money someone is
making or taking in at that time. So someone who is
making a lot of money is raking it in.
Here in Australia, most cafe and bar staff
really love Sunday shifts because they know
they’re gonna rake it in.
They get double per hour on Sundays.
Since Anna moved from marketing to sales, she’s been
raking in the money.
Imagine having money to burn.
Someone who’s rich
and they’ve got so much money
they don’t know what to do with it,
they’ve got money to burn.
It also can suggest you know that you’ve got money
and you want to spend it.
I’ve been saving for this holiday all year.
Now that we’re here, I’ve got money to burn.
So to say that someone is ‘rolling in it’ is another
informal way of saying that someone’s got heaps
of cash, you know, they’re loaded, they’re rolling in it.
My friend Evan spent fifteen years working
as an investment banker and he’s absolutely rolling in it.
Now my American friend tells me that it’s
really common to hear rolling in the dough in the US.
So ‘dough’ is sometimes used as informal slang
in the US for money.
Not usually here in Australia. Actually if you are curious
to learn some extra slang expressions about money,
this lesson up here is full of them, go check it out
at the end of this lesson.
I think you’ve probably heard the English expression
that you killed it,
meaning that you did something really well.
Well this money expression is kind of similar,
we say that you make a killing
and it means to make lots of money right,
to do really well with money.
So it’s often used when someone makes
a lot of money in a short period of time,
could be just in a day or in a month for example.
If you sold a lot more than you anticipated,
then you could definitely use this expression.
Dean set up an online shop selling watches
and he made a killing during the first week of sales.
And to exaggerate that meaning even further,
you can say
‘absolute killing’.
We made an absolute killing at the school carnival.
Yeah if only we all had one of these to sit on.
A gold mine.
We use it to say that someone has something valuable
or maybe that they’re in control of something valuable
and it could be an object or a thing,
not just money but that thing is worth a lot of money.
When we found out how much the art
collection at my grandmother’s house was worth,
we realised we were sitting on a gold mine.
Okay so that was the fun part but now
I gotta tell you some expressions about those times
when you know we don’t have money or enough of it.
But don’t worry you’re still gonna love these phrases
and expressions too. They’re just gonna help you to talk
about a lack of money, really useful for when you need
to explain that you can’t afford something.
And you know, for most of us,
that’s a reality that’s life.
The most
simple and neutral way of saying that you don’t have
enough money is to say that you are short on cash,
you know, when you don’t have enough
money to do what you want to do.
I wanted to get her a nice present
but I’m short on cash at the moment.
Can you lend me some money for the week?
I’m short on cash.
So tight is an adjective that we use to describe
someone who doesn’t like to spend money or
give their money away very freely.
And you’ve got to be careful because
it can be kind of offensive. It’s the
opposite of being generous with your money right?
You know, don’t expect Mandy to donate. She’s too tight.
Actually, I hear my American friends sometimes using
tight-fisted which has a similar meaning.
And here in Australia, actually this word, this adjective
can be used in a jokey way as well.
Stop being so tight and come out with us on Friday!
You can also say that you’re broke,
another casual informal way of saying that you have
no money.
And when we use this expression, usually
it suggests we don’t have very much money.
Usually we’re using it to exaggerate that we’re low on
cash, rather than saying that we have no money at all.
I won’t come to the concert on Friday.
I’m broke right now.
So this means that I can’t afford it,
I don’t have enough money to do that.
But broke can be serious and literal as well.
He got laid off from his job
and now his family is completely broke.
And usually by adding that adverb there
will help you to know that the meaning is
quite literal but you can always just ask and check.
Are you serious? Really?
That’s awful.
When you have just enough money to survive,
you’ve got to work really hard to get that money
and you don’t have anything left over at the end.
You don’t have any savings,
then you’re just scraping by.
And just like being broke,
this expression can be serious and real
or it can also be used as an exaggeration amongst your friends
to say that you don’t really have enough money.
I feel really sorry for Arthur.
Since he lost his job in August,
I know that he’s just been scraping by.
And you can express this same idea with this idiom,
to live hand to mouth.
Living hand to mouth
means that you just have enough money to survive.
So it’s a really unfortunate position to be in for anyone.
And where scraping by can be used a little more
informally when you’re low on money,
living hand to mouth is almost always serious really.
It’s quite literal.
Many single-parent families in this area are living
hand to mouth.
In the last part of this lesson, I’ve got
four bonus idioms for you to learn and practise with me.
They’re idioms that didn’t really fit into the previous
categories, they’re just ones for
those of you who stayed around until the end.
They’re not specifically about having
or not having money but they are really useful common
phrases and expressions about money.
The first one
is to break the bank and it’s used to say that something
costs too much
you know or you use all your money for something.
This car is second hand. It won’t break the bank.
A boat will be fun in summer but I’m almost certain
it will break the bank.
To foot the bill.
It’s a weird expression but it’s used to talk about
paying for something.
When you hear ‘foot the bill’ it
really just means pay the bill
but usually it’s when the person paying feels like
they shouldn’t be doing it you know.
This idiom is almost like a bit of a complaint.
When those customers left without paying,
it was the poor waiter who was left
to foot the bill for their meal.
In many cultures, the family of the bride
foots the bill for the wedding.
So in both of these examples, by using this expression
it suggests that the outcome is a little unfair.
I wonder if you’ll all agree with the meaning of
this expression when I explain it.
It’s used to suggest that people with money
often have more power so money in most places
in the world gives people power and influence right?
Well this expression suggests that you know there’s
unfairness or inequity there if you have more money.
You’re more likely to get what you want and you’re
privileged by your wealth.
So the expression ‘money talks’
suggests corruption or bribery of some kind
though not necessarily always as serious as that.
But you will hear this expression come up talking about
politics and situations where the rules and the laws
reflect the opinions of people who have lots of money
or maybe it’s easier for them to avoid following the rules
because they’ve got lots of money.
Unfortunately in our town money talks.
The wealthiest people who live here
are the ones who make all the decisions.
And lastly, you may have heard of this one or
maybe there’s a version of it in your own language
so make sure you share it
down in the comments with me if you do.
So, of course, we use money to buy things right?
But we can’t buy happiness.
This expression is often used to
counter the argument that money can get you
everything that you want. It suggests that
just because you have money
doesn’t mean that you’re happy.
So this expression is often used to comment or reflect
on the things that matter most in life.
What do you think?
Can money buy happiness?
And if not,
what does get you more happiness?
So that was seventeen new money and wealth
expressions for you.
I’m really curious to know which one of these
English expressions best applies to you
and your situation in life right now.
Are you rolling in it?
Are you just scraping by?
Let me know down in the comments below.
I hope that you’ve got to learn a few new expressions
today and that you were reminded of some
other ways to talk about wealth in English.
And you learned how to pronounce wealth, right?
Keep practising with me right here in these lessons.
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