All phrases › keep your head above water
What does “keep your head above water” mean?
Meaning, example sentence and a quick practice question.
C1
To just about manage financially, without going under
“We're keeping our heads above water, but only just.”
Say it smoothly: “keep-yer-head-uh-bove-water”
From the C1 lesson Money Talks (money and spending).
Quick check
What does “keep your head above water” mean?
Teaching this phrase?“keep your head above water” is part of a ready-to-teach lesson, with a reading, three exercises, speaking tasks and an answer key, in Everyday English Chunks C1 Pack 3 (Money, Food, Work and Travel).
See the C1 lesson pack
See the C1 lesson pack
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Related phrases
- live beyond your meansto regularly spend more money than you earn
- be in the redto owe more than you have; to be overdrawn or in debt
- in the blackto have a positive balance; financially solvent
- tighten the purse stringsto start spending more cautiously
- a false economya saving that ends up costing more in the long run
- feel the pinchto notice the effects of financial hardship
- a nest egga sum of money saved for the future
- penny-pinchingexcessively, often pettily, careful with small sums
- money is no objectused to say cost doesn't matter in a decision