Learn the English Phrases "to scrape by" and "to scrape up"

In this English lesson

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to scrape by.

Now, when you scrape by it can mean you're talking

about money or succeeding at something,

but just succeeding by a little bit.

Here's a good example.

You might say, my cousin doesn't make

a lot of money at work,

but he has enough money to scrape by.

That means he can pay all his bills,

but he doesn't have a lot of money left over

to do anything fun.

That would be kind of disappointing, wouldn't it?

It's always nice to have a little extra money.

When you just have enough money to scrape by,

life isn't as enjoyable.

You could also say this, he passed his exam,

but he just scraped by.

I'm using the past tense now, he just scraped by,

that means the person probably got 51% on their exam,

so they just did good enough to pass.

The second phrase I want to teach you today

is the phrase to scrape up.

When you scrape up, it means you kind of gather stuff.

If I was to go to work today and if I didn't bring a lunch,

and instead I wanted to bring money,

I might have to scrape up some money in the house.

I might have to look for some change or look for some bills.

I might need to scrape up some money so I have enough.

If Jen gets a call from someone and they say,

do you have any peonies?

And if Jen doesn't have a lot,

maybe she has three peonies flowers,

but she knows she can go out to the field

and scrape up a few more.

It means there's hardly anything left.

There's hardly any peonies left,

but she knows if she goes around and cuts a few,

and gets a few out of the cooler,

she can scrape up enough to make a bouquet.

So let's review, to scrape by means to just have

enough money to live or it means to just succeed

at something by a little bit.

And to scrape up means to kind of gather together money

or some other things.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.

If you wonder why I'm laughing,

it's because it's really early in the morning here,

I just crawled out of bed to make this video.

It's early Thursday morning,

one of my busiest days of the week,

and I got up at 6:00 AM, and it's 6:10 right now.

So I probably look, Do I have bags under my eyes?

and my hair's a little bit messy.

I should have shaved today too, but oh well,

I needed to get an English lesson done,

so that's the way it goes.

This comment is from Know That.

"Hello, Mr. Bob,

I noticed that you have switched the side

you wear your fitness tracker on.

if I'm right, you usually wear it on your left wrist",

yes, "But as far as I can remember,

you said that you always do this in the summer

so that you can get an even tan to avoid a brighter part.

Thank you for the new phrases, sir,

I wish you a nice day."

And my response, that is, correct,

I switch it each day so that I don't end up

with a white band on my arm, very perceptive of you.

So yes, I do tan a little bit in the summer,

and if I wear my fit... I don't know, I probably don't have

a white band here now, but I do switch it from arm to arm.

Let's see how quickly I can get this put back on.

I do switch it from arm to arm,

because otherwise I end up with my arm being tanned.

And then there's this white area where my Fitbit would be.

Now it's not telling me the time.

So yes, thank you,

Know That, that was very perceptive of you.

I do still switch it every day in the summer

when I go for my walk in the morning.

And by the way, I have been walking a lot lately.

I don't know what's gotten into me,

I have started walking and even running a little bit.

I'm not a runner.

Years ago, I used to run long distances,

when I was like 22, 23.

But now at the age of 51, I don't usually run,

but I've been running.

I think I've been walking so much the past year

that my body has adapted, and in order to get my heart rate

to the right beats per minute for it to be exercise,

I need to run a little bit.

Anyways, see you in a couple days

with another English lesson, bye.