burn a hole in someone’s pocket—(of money) make a person eager to spend it:
- It’s Sunday, everything’s closed, and there’s Bob with $10 burning a hole in his pocket.
Note: The expression does not correlate in meaning with the phrase have money to burn—have so much money that one can spend it freely:
- You must have money to burn. First of all, that floodlighting, and then this.
make a hole in someone’s pocket—deplete smb.’s savings, bank account, etc. considerably:
- The cost of these repairs to the house has made a big hole in my pocket.