bare necessities

Idioms and Phrases

Just sufficient resources, with nothing to spare. For example, The room was furnished with just the bare necessities—bed, table, chair . This idiom uses bare in the sense of “mere, and nothing else,” a usage dating from about 1200.

Example Sentences

Each month, he receives ¥300 ($50) in welfare payments, an amount insufficient to cover the bare necessities.

From The Daily Beast

There is a huge shortage of the bare necessities for living any sort of decent life.

From The Daily Beast

Surely a third class passenger is entitled at least to the bare necessities of life.

From Project Gutenberg

He denied himself all but bare necessities and cigars, even the two small luxuries he valued—scent and good writing paper.

From Project Gutenberg

But in Bohemia occasions preponderated when indulgence in anything beyond bare necessities was an impossibility.

From Project Gutenberg

We were not much better off in the bare necessities of life.

From Project Gutenberg

Why, at one time (and not so long ago) we were without the bare necessities of life itself.

From Project Gutenberg