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by Liz Walter

My last post looked at words and phrases for things that cost a lot of money. Today’s post looks at ways of describing things that don’t cost much.

The most common adjective for things with a low price is cheap. However, you should be careful with this word because it can often imply poor quality. Inexpensive is more positive and slightly more formal. Another positive way of describing things that aren’t too expensive is reasonable, while a modest amount of money is a fairly small one:

A smell of cheap perfume hung in the air.

I’m looking for an inexpensive laptop.

He’s a great hairdresser, and his prices are very reasonable.

They bought the land for a modest sum.

Businesses use various words to tell customers that something is cheap but without negative implications about quality, for example budget, affordable, cut-price (UK) / cut-rate (US) and low-cost:

There are plenty of budget hotels to choose from.

We moved to an area where homes were more affordable.

You can pick up cut-price tools in their sale.

This is a low-cost alternative to a commercial printer.

They may also boast of discount, bargain, or knockdown prices, while an economy pack of goods contains a larger amount than usual and has a lower price for each item:

We buy the food at a discount price.

The store sells fantastic vintage clothing at bargain prices.

They buy furniture at knockdown prices and restore it to sell at a profit.

I bought an economy pack of sausages for the party.

If something is going cheap, it is being sold at a lower price than usual, and if you can buy something for a song, it is being sold for an extremely low price. In British English, we might also say that something is a snip, while Americans would call it a steal:

My brother has lots of old DVDs going cheap, if you’re interested.

He bought the boat for a song from an old fisherman.

The tickets were a snip at £5 each.

Dirt cheap and the informal cheap as chips are emphatic ways of describing things that are extremely cheap:

Rents are dirt cheap in this area.

The T-shirts are cheap as chips.

I’ll finish with a word to describe things that don’t cost anything at all. If something is complimentary, it is provided free by a business:

The hotel provides a complimentary breakfast buffet from six-thirty to nine.

Of course, a cynical person would say that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, meaning that nothing in life is really free and that we always have to pay something or do something in return for things that are given to us. Do you think that’s true?