From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishlive off somebody/something phrasal verbEARNto get your income or food from a supply of money or from another person Mom used to live off the interest from her savings. Dad lost his job and we had to live off welfare. Most people in the countryside live off the land (=live by growing or finding their own food). → live→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
live off the land• Bush Tucker Man used to live off the land and, indeed, anything that ran fractionally slower than he did.• Most of the 300,000 people live off the land and no one has gone hungry. 