gravy

To be in a state, position, or job where one makes an excessive amount of money without expending much or any effort. I'll be on the gravy train once I get paid from the settlement of the lawsuit! My brother has been on the gravy train ever since he married his wife, whose family owns one of the largest oil companies in the world.

In a state, position, or job where one makes an excessive amount of money without expending much or any effort. I'll be on the gravy train once I get paid from the settlement of the lawsuit! My brother ended up on the gravy train when he married his wife, whose family owns one of the largest oil companies in the world.

Fig. Any additional money received is just an easily acquired bonus. There is some cost involved in buying the raw materials, and the cost of manufacturing is negligible. When we pay off the costs, the rest is gravy.

Fig. to live in ease or luxury. 1/7 had a million dollars, I sure could ride the gravy train. I wouldn't like loafing if I were rich. I don't want to ride the gravy train.

an activity from which people make a lot of money very quickly and easily A lot of people thought they'd get on the gravy train in the eighties and make some money out of property.

Experience excessive ease, success, or profit, especially undeservedly. For example, Now that his brother is paying all his bills, Jim is riding the gravy train. The word gravy has long meant "easy profits," and the term is believed to come from 19th-century railroad slang, although the earliest recorded use dates from the early 1900s. W.C. Handy used it in one of his famous blues songs written in 1914, in which he bemoans falling off the gravy train. Also see easy street.