11 PHRASAL VERBS for talking about MONEY in English

Money, money, money is so funny in a rich man's world.

Vanity Fair. I'm not a rich man,

so I can't afford half of the things in here. Speaking of which, we're talking about money,

and in this lesson what I want to do is teach you a bunch of phrasal verbs that we use to

talk about spending money, saving money, and paying back debts that we use quite commonly.

And I'm going to teach you how to use them, and what they are, and have some fun with

you. Are you ready? Let's go to the board. Okay?

E, it's not funny, I got no money. E is all, see? Got dollar signs for eyes. You might

see that. If you're having a problem, take your screen and enlarge it to full screen,

there's a little button. And we actually have a video on that, go check that out if you

don't know how to use your YouTube. Okay? Anyway, E's got his eyes... He's got dollar

signs for eyes, because he's got money in his hand. And if you're lucky, you have money,

too; but when you don't have money, well, it's time to learn some phrases to help you

with that. Okay?

So, here's our dollar sign, here, and let's start with having money or saving it. Okay?

If you're lucky... Well, let's start with just having enough. A lot of people just have

enough money. And how do we talk about that in English? Well, what you can say is this:

"I'm getting by". "Getting by" means I don't have a lot of money, and I'm surviving. So

I can't go on big trips or do anything, but I'm not poor and I don't have zero money,

but I have enough to get my food, and pay my rent or my homestay, and pay some other

things for me, maybe my cellphone and my internet, but nothing special; no car, no fancy trips,

no bling, bling, bling or great jewellery. You know what I mean? So, that's "getting by".

It's kind of positive because it means I'm not bad, but it's not fantastic, like:

"I'm rich!" Okay?

Let's talk about "scrape by", because this is have just enough. When you're scraping

by, imagine you have this thing here-okay?-and this thing. And there's gum on here, and you

want to get the gum off, you're going to... That's called scraping. And when you scrape,

sometimes you'll take a little bit of the paper off with it, just a little bit, when

you scrape. In Canada, we have winter, and when we have ice on our windows, we scrape

the ice to get rid of it. It's a lot of work, it's not lots of fun. You probably understand

the phrasal verb now, right? When you're scraping by, you just have enough money. But unlike

"getting by", because notice how we have "get", we have you're getting something, you're given

something, which is good, you're getting money, that's why you get by; 'scraping" by means

just a little bit. Just enough. And you feel negative. You don't feel good when you're

scraping by. Every day is heavy and hard, because you almost don't have enough money

to pay for everything. Sorry. You need a job or a better one. Okay.

So, what happens? How do we change this, "scraping by"? Why don't we do something like this,

why don't we save some money? In English, we have two phrasal verbs you can use for

saving money. Notice the up sign: "to save up". When you save up money... Think of it

this way: Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. You increase your money. You usually save

your money up for something big, like a car, a vacation, retirement. And retirement is

when you stop working forever. You're older, 65-70, you finish work and you don't want

to work again, you want to play golf, or go baseball, go sailing. You retire. So, you

save up. These are for big purchases. So, it won't be $100. It'll be $1,000, $10,000,

a million dollars. A million dollars. [Laughs] Okay.

We have another one for saving, though, and we call it: "put aside". You might have difficulty

because probably you've never heard of "aside".

This is my side, this is on the other side.

Okay? So when we say "aside", it's like here, on the side. On the side is "aside". Okay?

Sometimes we speak and say: "I want to make an aside", which means I'm going to give you

a direct conversation, but I want to say something a little off to the side. There you go: "aside".

If that didn't clarify it, buy a dictionary. [Laughs] But, you notice I have a little box,

here? It's on the side. When you put aside money, you have money here, you're going to

take a little piece of the money and you're going to put it over here; aside. You go:

"Why? I thought saving up is what I do." Putting money aside is a little different. When you

put money aside, you're saving it for, usually, a shorter period of time for something very

specific. When I'm saving up money for a house, it takes a long time to save that money up,

maybe years. So I save up the money-doo, doo, doo, doo, doo-until it grows; $1, $100, $10,000,

$200,000, $500,000. I save it up and keep going. When I put money aside, I might have $5, and

I will take $1 and I will put it aside over here. You go: "Why?" You know, later on I

want to buy a chocolate bar with this dollar, so I must take it from here and move it over

here, and I will put it in my pocket, and then later on I can buy my chocolate bar.

I don't need to save for years, and days, or months. I'm just saving it for a short

period of time for something very specific. So, maybe you have $100 and you and I are

going out with Mr. E for a drink, and I go:

"Hey, put aside $20. We're going to go for dinner after."

Which means: Spend $80, no problem, but save that $20 for dinner afterwards.

That's what we mean by "putting money aside". Save it for a short period of time for something

specific; while "saving up money" means to save for a long period of time for something

very big. Cool?

All right. So we've gone from just having enough, and we've saved up our money. Okay?

Now, what are we going to do? Well, usually, you save it, you got to spend it, baby. All

right? So we're going to spend some money. Unfortunately, for most people, when you don't

have a lot of money, spending money is not a positive experience. In fact, there aren't

that many idioms for saying: "I spent money and I'm happy." Yay! Go check it out. People

have a funny relationship with money. It's usually negative. If they have a lot of it,

they're protecting it; and if they don't have enough, they're just scraping by. All right?

Not so good.

So, let's look at when we do spend money. How do people talk about it? Well, we talk

about spending money like this. "Fork". You know how you have a knife and fork? Usually

when you take your fork and you're eating, you put the fork into something, and you put

it in your mouth and it's gone. And the only way you see it again is when it comes out

again like poo0poo. Right? You get poo-poo, which is not good. So, a lot of people see

money, when they have to "fork over" money-okay?-is they're giving that money and it's gone for

good. Even if they want to have the thing, they don't really want to spend the money.

Okay?

"Cough up". When I say: "I have to cough up $10", think of a cat: "Meow, meow." They get

hairballs-[gurgles and coughs]-and they cough it up. If you ever look at the cat, the cat

doesn't go: "Hehe!" It's usually like: "Ugh, that was disgusting." [Laughs] For other people...

For us, when we say: "Oh, man, do I have to cough up another $20?" It means pay, and I

don't want to pay. I don't like the hairball. That's what it's called when a cat... A cat

spits it out, it's a hairball. I don't want to cough up the money.

Finally: "shell", "shell out". Well, shells are for protection. Right? Tortoise, shrimp

has a soft shell, clams and mussels all have shells, but they protect because they want

to keep whatever's inside. A mussel, or a clam, or a shrimp, or a tortoise, or a snail

- they all want to keep themselves safe inside. So they don't like being opened and something

come out. So when you have to shell out money, you literally have to take money and give

it out, and you don't want to; you want to protect it and keep it inside. Yeah, we have

a funny relationship with money. For people who love it so much, we don't like giving

it away. Okay? So we talked about not having enough, saving it, and then after we save

it, like even buying that house, having to spend it and how we think about it.

What do we call it when you actually have to go into your savings to spend something?

Well, that's what we call "using savings", and we have two ways of using our savings,

just like we have two ways of saving up. And one is short term and one is long term, okay?

Kind of similar. When you have to "dip into" your savings, it means to go into your saved

money and take a little bit out for something.

"My car broke down last week, so I had to dip into my savings."

That means I took out some of the money, maybe $100, and I left

the rest of the money. I just took a little bit, and I left the rest. So if I was saving

up, I would save a lot, and then take a little bit, but I would continue to go. So, dipping

into your bank account or your savings account is not great, but it's not bad. Maybe you

dip in for $100, $10, $50 for dinner. You dip into it, and you get out. Think about

going into water. You go in for a dip, you go in, you come back out. That's good. Right?

You dip in the water. Dip for a quick swim, come out. No harm done. Everything's okay.

But when you "break into your savings", this is not good. When I break into my savings,

it's like, mm, trying to swim from Canada to China. Huh? Well, when you break into your

savings it means you have to keep going in the savings and keep taking money out all

the time. Imagine swimming from Canada to China. It's a big, big distance. If you dip

in, you're in for a long time. You're going to have to keep swimming, if you want to survive,

to get to China. So when someone tells you:

"I had to break into my savings because my new place is too much money",

it means all my money that was up here that I was saving,

I have to keep taking it down. I'm breaking into my savings, and I really don't like it

because my savings will disappear. So, the difference between "dip" and "break": When

you dip in, you go into the savings, take $5 out, come out, short; when you break into

your savings, you keep taking it and taking it and taking it until the money goes down.

That's not so cool. All right.

[Sighs]

I talked about savings, I talked about getting into your savings, I've talked about

not having enough money, I've talked about spending money. All these things are good

because this is your money that you're using in some way, but what about when you have

to give money back to somebody you took it from, like the bank or a friend? We call this:

"Paying back a debt". Okay? So, when you have to pay debts, there are two ways to pay off your debts.

One is better than the other. Let's take a look at it.

When I "pay back a debt" it means I have to give money back to you,

but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to finish it.

When I'm paying back, like, for a house or a car, it means I borrowed

$1,000, I'm paying back maybe $100 a week, it means I can keep paying again and again

and again, but I am paying it, so the money I gave... Came... I took from you was here,

and as I pay it back, it goes down. Okay? That's why sometimes you break into your savings

to pay down your debts. Right? Or pay back your debts. Both are reduced.

So, "paying back" means reduction. Okay?

"Paying off a debt" means it's finished. I paid off my Visa card. Done. Think of a light

switch. You take off the lights, the lights are off. Right? Finished. No more light. When

you pay off a debt, I paid off my Visa - I don't have to give them any more money, thank

heavens, because I'm just scraping by as it is. You know that I haven't saved up any money

in a while, and I've had to dip into my savings for the last two months. Cool? Notice how

I used all of these phrasal verbs to talk about money, and I never said the word "money"

once, all right?

If you've been paying attention and you've been listening to what I've said, you can

do the same thing that I just did, because not have you just learned-one, two, three,

four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten- eleven phrasal verbs - you know how to use

them and you understand them, so you can speak like a native speaker. And just to test you

on that, we're going to give you a short test in a second or two, and see how well you learned.

You ready?

[Snaps]

So, I sang that song: "Money, money, money, it's so funny", well, it's actually serious

business, boys and girls. And so serious, I'm going to tell a story. Actually, no, you're

going to help me with the story. We're going to look at what you learned and see if you

understand it, and if you do, you'll know the answers to the story already, and some

of you I think do. So, let's just check it out and take a look. You ready?

Oh, before I do, I just want to go through a quick hint; something I think will help

make your learning faster and easier for you, and that will help you with phrasal verbs

in the future. So, hint: When learning a new verb, look at all its definitions. Sometimes

when you open a dictionary... And I recommend you get an English to English dictionary.

At the beginning, maybe one that translates, but then a dictionary that translates never

really translates everything; it can't. A language is too big, so you need the actual

dictionary from the language.

Once you open your English to English dictionary, there will be definitions, like: "Up" or to...

Let's say "wash", and you'll look: "Wash", and it'll say: "Wash - to clean, or to erase, to clean oneself."

And then it will say: "Wash up" and that means wash up dishes, to clean

up the dishes. "Wash out - it means to be let go". Whoa, and all these phrasal verbs

are there. Okay? Now, if you look at those definitions and go down, you don't have to

try to remember them, but... Read this part with me. You may find a phrasal verb or two,

as I just discussed with "wash" and "wash up". Okay? If you pay attention, you will

notice extra or hidden meanings of the verb in the phrasal verb. When you see "wash",

it means to clean. Okay? But when you say "wash up" it means to clean to make better,

improve. And a "washout" is someone who... Well, it depends, actually. If you wash out

the colour, the colour goes away, so it's not even cleaning; it's getting rid of something

you want. That's crazy, right? But that's a hidden meaning of "wash", because it does

mean to clean, and in doing so, it means something might disappear that you want. Wow. "Wash"

means disappear? No. It's a hidden meaning that only comes out with phrasal verbs, but

that will help you with other uses of "wash" when you see it in the future. And that's

just one example of using a phrasal verb to truly understand a new verb that you're working

on. Cool? Well, let's go to the board and work on the phrasal verbs you've just learned,

and these ones have to do with money. So, finish the story.

"Last week Mr. E's TV stopped working and he needed to __________ __________ $400 for a new one."

[Coughs]

Sorry, just coughing.

[Coughs]

What do you think it is?

Okay. Well, there were two, but if you did this:

"cough up", you are correct.

Because, you know, his TV stopped working. He didn't want to buy the new television;

he liked his old one, but you do what you need to do. So he had to cough up $400 for

a new one. The story's not quite finished yet, so let's go through it.

"He had been __________ __________ for a new car."

What do you think it is?

That's right.

A car is a lot of money; $10, $20, $30,000, sometimes

more, if you can afford it. In this case, you know it's a lot of money, so it's not

putting aside money; you'd be saving up money because it would be for a lot of things. So

you want to... "He had been saving up money for a new car." So he was saving up. Okay?

How about this part?

"Mr. E had to __________ __________ his savings to get the money for the new TV."

Hmm.

Well, it's kind of hot, so maybe I'll just go in the pool afterwards, and just take a little...

Did you say "dip into"? See? That's why I like you, you're a good student. That's

right. Like I took a dip into the pool, he had to dip into his savings.

Why? Think about it. When you dip in the pool, you go in, you come back out.

In this case, he needed $400.

He was saving thousands of dollars for his car, so he only needs to go in one time to

take the money out to pay for the television. So he dipped into his savings and took some

money out. He's not going to do it regularly, so he's not breaking the savings; he's just

dipping in and coming back out. It's unfortunate or too bad, but hey, this is life.

Okay? Now let's finish this off.

"It actually cost $500, so the next week he had to __________ __________ on $20 a day."

Hey, yo, E, get me a coffee while you're out? It's all right. They're going to be a second.

Oh, sorry, that's right, you said: "get", that's right, he had to... Because you heard

me, right? "Get by on $20 a day". Remember? "Scraping by" is not have enough money. Clearly,

if E has enough money for a car, he can take more money, but he's getting by on $20 because

it was unexpected it would be $100 more. But he doesn't have a lot of money. $20 a day

is not a lot. Even McDonald's cost 10. [Laughs]

So, let's read the story all together.

"Last week Mr. E's TV stopped working and he needed to cough up $400 for a new one.

He had been saving up money for a new car.

Mr. E had to dip into his savings to get the money for the new TV.

It actually cost $500, so the next week he had to get by on $20 a day. The end."

That's the end of the video, and if you want to learn more phrasal verbs about money, living,

cleaning up, a whole host of things or a lot of things - you know where to go, don't you?

Well, I'm going to send you there. Go to www.eng as in English, vid as in video.com (www.engvid.com),

where you can do the quiz to this particular video, and find other videos on money, and

other phrasal verbs and grammar questions you may have.

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