From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishget by phrasal verbSURVIVEto have enough money to buy the things you need, but no more I don’t earn a huge salary, but we get by. on Sometimes they had to get by on very little. → get→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
get by• He went to Tokyo and within a few weeks knew enough Japanese to get by.• We don't have a lot of money to spend on luxuries, but we get by.• When I was at college I used to be able to get by on $20 a week.get on• I can barely get by on $ 60,000 a year.• Winifred Bleasdale, and others like her, have to get by on £77 a week.• Somehow they manage to get by on $800 a month.• The family gets by on a hundred and sixty pounds a week from social security and family allowance payments.• It's, well, enough to get by on, but not much more, not enough to start something.• For all the glamour, players in the currency markets get by on hard work and tough analysis.• Always slightly befuddled, Bennett none the less gets by on his academic prowess.• They get by on talent and at this level that might work for a while.• Some people can get by on three or four hours a night whilst others seem to need much more.From Longman Business Dictionaryget by phrasal verb [intransitive] to manage to deal with a difficult situation, using whatever money, equipment etc you haveSYNmanage on/withThe Fed made several changes designed to make it easier for banks to get by on fewer reserves.In Microsoft Windows, you can get by with just 2 megabytes of memory. → get→ See Verb table 