English · Idiom Candidate

cut one's cloth to suit one's purse

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Spend money according to one's means

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Chi tiêu theo khả năng tài chính

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: tailoring clothes to fit available fabric

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

She cut her cloth to suit her purse and bought a smaller house

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “cut one's cloth to suit one's purse” mean?

Spend money according to one's means Literally: tailoring clothes to fit available fabric

Is “cut one's cloth to suit one's purse” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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