on the cheap
Meaning
(informal) Synonym of cheaply or economically.
(informal) Too cheaply or economically, inexpensive and affordable to the point of substandard quality.
Well, if you buy things on the cheap what do you expect?
Synonyms
Antonyms
Examples
Trying to rebuild Afghanistan on the cheap has left the country in the hands of warlords and an impotent Northern Alliance puppet regime that runs Kabul and nothing else.
Affirmative action was always racial justice on the cheap.
Britain loves a bargain, but you don't get good, lasting architecture on the cheap.
It was a fine cast and lots of fun to make, but they did the damn thing on the cheap. The backdrops had holes in them, and it was shot on the worst film stock.
If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable.
Ever since I was a girl, I have written about one to five pages every day - on napkins, on scrap paper, in notebooks and tablets, on the walls in my room as a teenager, and in orange paint on the cheap white plastic blinds in my room.