A hand-to-mouth existence.    From Wordnet, Princeton University. 

Adjective : a hand-to-mouth existence.    From Dictionary.com. 

It was a very basic kind of hand-to-mouth existence.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Apr 14, 2006] Reference

It operated as most entities on a "hand-to-mouth" basis.    From Wordnik.com.  [ANC Daily News Briefing] Reference

One of her companions in this sort of hand-to-mouth journalism was.    From Wordnik.com.  [Famous Affinities of History — Complete] Reference

In recent years, the Columbus Symphony has survived hand-to-mouth.    From Wordnik.com.  [Goodbye, Columbus Symphony?] Reference

The winter dragged slowly along while we led a hand-to-mouth existence.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Romance and Tragedy] Reference

With no realistic loan facilities in Zambia, the business operates hand-to-mouth.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Feb 7, 2004] Reference

It was certainly a hand-to-mouth existence so far as the daily manna was concerned.    From Wordnik.com.  [Quiet Talks on Power] Reference

And for the first time, being the poor hand-to-mouth member of my family is paying off.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Dec 2, 2008] Reference

Countries will live hand-to-mouth, buying wheat only as they need it, Mr. Hannagan said.    From Wordnik.com.  [Wheat Futures Drop on Poor Export Sales] Reference

But we humans do not have to be content with this hand-to-mouth way of thinking and feeling.    From Wordnik.com.  [By the Christmas Fire] Reference

"There will be a little bit dribbling in here and there, but were are living hand-to-mouth.".    From Wordnik.com.  [ANC Daily News Briefing] Reference

"I couldn't do that anymore," Mr. Hanley says of the hand-to-mouth existence of many start-ups.    From Wordnik.com.  [In Silicon Valley, a Flight to Safety] Reference

I hate the brilliant, disorderly hand-to-mouth sort of Bohemia, Kenny, in which you seem to thrive.    From Wordnik.com.  [Kenny] Reference

Put them on a plate, don't get stuck next to the buffet table with that hand-to-mouth action going.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Feb 1, 2004] Reference

Discourage your children from putting their hands in their mouths or other hand-to-mouth activities.    From Wordnik.com.  [Public Health Statement for Chlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins (CDDs)] Reference

That was his life and he was happy in it, a hand-to-mouth sort of existence in which he was satisfied.    From Wordnik.com.  [Spring Street A Story of Los Angeles] Reference

The gene is carried by bacteria that can spread hand-to-mouth, which makes good hygiene very important.    From Wordnik.com.  [Drug Resistant Bacteria Found In 3 States] Reference

Napoleon was born in obscurity, the son of a hand-to-mouth scrivener in the backward island of Corsica.    From Wordnik.com.  [How to Speak and Write Correctly] Reference

Apparently he'd been living hand-to-mouth, and maybe even going so far as living in different shelters.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript May 20, 2004] Reference

Living hand-to-mouth for the survival of their families, while suffering under a male-dominated society.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Jan 7, 2006] Reference

Children may be exposed to lead by hand-to-mouth contact after exposure to lead-containing soil or dust.    From Wordnik.com.  [Public Health Statement for Lead] Reference

Discourage your children from putting their hands in their mouths or doing other hand-to-mouth activities.    From Wordnik.com.  [Public Health Statement for Perchlorates] Reference

This serves, however, to show the perilous condition the town is in, living as it is in a hand-to-mouth fashion.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Johnstown Horror!!! or, Valley of Death, being A Complete and Thrilling Account of the Awful Floods and Their Appalling Ruin] Reference

Discourage your children from putting their hands in their mouths or engaging in other hand-to-mouth activities.    From Wordnik.com.  [Health effects of arsenic] Reference

But it's still pretty much a hand-to-mouth existence here for the tens of thousands whose homes were washed away.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Jun 24, 2005] Reference

Especially in the early phase of the business, a sole trader will often be operating hand-to-mouth, month-to-month.    From Wordnik.com.  [Brett King: Creating the PFM for Business Banking] Reference

Disgusted with their desultory, hand-to-mouth existence, they yearned after respectability and a prime-ministership.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847] Reference

The incompetent hand-to-mouth conduct of foreign affairs in England did not bring disaster on the country, mainly because.    From Wordnik.com.  [England under the Tudors] Reference

But 2006 also brought the Paris Hilton nightclub brawl with Shana Moakler, and the Clay Aiken-Kelly Ripa hand-to-mouth showdown.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Dec 22, 2006] Reference

Tries in a provincial town, under another name; unhappily succeeds; life of an actor; hand-to-mouth life; illness; chest affected.    From Wordnik.com.  [Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851] Reference

For this reason the stock in process must not necessarily be considered insufficient if it appears to be on the hand-to-mouth plan.    From Wordnik.com.  [Industrial Progress and Human Economics] Reference

Fred and Ginger may have moved in wealthy circles, but their characters were often hungry hoofers, living essentially hand-to-mouth.    From Wordnik.com.  [When Bad Times Make Good Movies] Reference

HAMMER: In Kabul, Afghanistan, there are an astonishing 50,000 women widowed from the war, destitute, uneducated living hand-to-mouth.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Dec 6, 2007] Reference

It's hand-to-mouth existence, because we had to go out in the plant and take up a collection to send somebody to negotiate a contract.    From Wordnik.com.  [Oral History Interview with Carlee Drye, April 2, 1980. Interview H-0005. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)] Reference

Is Whitman's spinning episode emblematic of yet another instance in which the rich get richer while the little guy goes hand-to-mouth?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Douglas M. Branson: The Would-Be Governor From Goldman Sachs] Reference

Across this harsh and unforgiving land, many are living hand-to-mouth, wondering when the rains will come, when the suffering will stop.    From Wordnik.com.  [CNN Transcript Jul 31, 2005] Reference