They have to make do in a small apartment.
My cousin Suzy has a good job, and makes a living doing computer work. She
moved to Manhattan two years ago, but she soon found it hard to make ends meet
living alone there, so she decided to get a roommate to help pay the rent.
Her
roommate makes money in sales, so she can afford half of the rent. The problem
is that the apartment is not big, so they have to make do with living in a
small space.
For today’s free English lesson, I want to show you four English phrases
related to money that use the word make. Have a look at the paragraph above
once more and then check out the lesson.
Make money means to earn or get money. It has a
positive nuance of earning a good or high profit:
- Lori makes a
lot of money selling stuff on eBay.
- It’s hard to make
money working as a musician.
- Momo made money in
the stock market and bought a nice house.
Make a living means to earn money to
live and support oneself and/or a family. We often use a gerund (VerbING) or as
+ noun after make a living:
- Jack makes a
living selling used cars.
- I think it would be tough
to make a living as an artist.
- Tommy makes a
living doing accounting.
Make do or make do with + object means
to manage with a limited amount of something, like money, or an inadequate
thing, like an old car.
- Danny doesn’t have a job
now, so he has to make do with his savings.
- We can’t afford a new
car, so we’ll have to make do with this old car until we
can save enough to get a new car.
- We only brought two
bottles of lemonade to the picnic. I didn’t realize Ken’s family is also
going to join us so we’ll just have to make do.
Make ends meet means to earn just
enough money to be able to pay one’s bills. Literally, it means to live and
budget one’s money, so that the end of the money and the end of the bills meet
at the same time.
- Chris and his wife just
bought a house, so they are working really hard to make ends meet.
- After the landlord raised
the rent, Jenny started working a part time job in order to make
ends meet.
- Eddie couldn’t make
ends meet living alone in Manhattan, so he decided to get a
roommate to help pay the rent.