How nuts is it?

It’s nuts. That might be some folks’ reaction if they knew their “nut” in the financial sense of the word.

If that stirs visions of squirrels fighting over acorns, you are not far off.

Nut is increasingly used in popular culture, especially in the United States as the struggle increases for millions of consumers with each passing day.

A couple of high-profile TV examples are South Park and Your Friends & Neighbors, where the nut is discussed in the context of what someone’s spend rate is based on their lifestyle.

In the South Park episode titled “Got a Nut,” the local school counsellor is laid off amid spending cuts and finds himself with his financial adviser discussing his mortgage, other debt payments and expenses for living.

His nut is US$8,000 a month. “I had no idea my nut was that big,” he says.

In his desperation for income, he takes a job with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), despite moral misgivings, because he must get his nut.

This is based on an element of truth. Research has shown Latinx Americans, for example, join immigration law enforcement in surprisingly high numbers despite ICE targeting their communities disproportionately.

They do so out of economic survival because it’s a good-paying, government job.

Your Friends & Neighbors lead Jon Hamm’s character also finds himself out of work, fired from a hedge fund, leaving him scrambling to cover his family’s nut, which is several times more than US$8,000 a month.

As one New York Times columnist writes about the series: “It’s expensive being rich; you have to keep up.”

And so Hamm’s character turns to burglarizing ultra-wealthy neighbours of luxury items they don’t even realize are missing because they own so much.

Among the items, for example, is a Patek Philippe Nautilus 5811/1G-001 watch, which resales for at least US$200,000.

Nut’s underlying meaning in both programs might be the lengths people will go to so they can stay solvent.

It’s apropos given their immoral choices and nut’s roots as a financial term, which stem from American history’s dodgier corners.

Lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, an adjunct assistant professor in the writing program at Columbia University, notes in an email to the Free Press that nut is “originally a criminal slang term, referring to an amount of money required for any particular venture or activity, and dates to the early 20th century.”

Sheidlower, a past-president of the American Dialect Society, wrote being in “exceptionally busy period right now” and couldn’t offer too much more. Lexicographers, too, have their nut — in the modern personal finance sense — to cover like everyone else.

The website Phrase Finder offers more colour, pointing to nut’s origins among “gamblers, carnival lots and cheap theatres” more than a century ago.

Nut referred to a kind of mental expense account for gamblers. It could also mean being in debt — “one the nut.”

According to carny’ legend, though never documented, nut comes from a travelling circus owing a town for the use of its land. The local sheriff removed a nut from the circus’s main wagon wheel so it could not leave town until the bill was settled.

The author of the Phrase Finder article David Saylor notes a “duller and likelier” explanation for the nut as a money metaphor. That a nut — in its real sense — is “a small, hard thing” that has to be “cracked before you get anything out of it.”

Best-selling Canadian personal finance author Kelley Keehn offers a modern take: “To me, the nut really means, ‘this is how much it costs us to actually live,’ and I can generally speculate that most households don’t really know that.”

Often people starting businesses attempt to know their nut, though they likely never use the word, says Keehn, author of Save Yourself: a New Approach to Thinking About Money and Taking Control of Your Financial Future.

Many entrepreneurs may realize they “can’t fully make their nut” at least initially, says Keehn, also chief executive officer of Money Wise Institute.

Their new business income isn’t enough to pay for mortgage, property taxes, utilities, car payments and other non-discretionary costs, for example, so they take on part-time work.

Nut shouldn’t be confused with budget, Keehn adds.

“A budget refers to what you’re planning to spend.” Yet it could be stripped down to just cover you nut: the expenses that must be paid.

Most people with steady work “sail along” not ever knowing their nut, she adds. They just pay it. That is until misfortune occurs. “It seems to come up more when people lose their job,” Keehn says.

At that point, they engage in a line-by-line examination of banking statements, slashing discretionary expenses — streaming services, Starbucks coffee, takeout, etc. — to develop a bare bones budget that covers just the nut.

“Nut is really just what we need for survival mode,” Keehn says.

A hardcore analysis of the household’s cash burn rate may only come into focus in times of stress, but a good argument can be made to get a sense of your nut when things are good, too.

After all, in today’s increasingly nutty world, you never know when you might suddenly be scrambling.

Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist

joelschles@gmail.com