on a shoestring
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]
Words nearby on a shoestring
on a limb,
on a par with,
on a pedestal, put,
on a rampage,
on a roll,
on a shoestring,
on a string,
on a tangent,
on account,
on account of,
on again