Understanding “Spend…On Something”

What Does “Spend…On” Mean?

The phrase spend...on is used to talk about how you use your time, money, or effort on a particular thing or activity.

• Money: I spent $50 on books.
• Time: She spends two hours on homework every day.
• Effort: They spent a lot of energy on organizing the event.

Basic Sentence Structure

The standard pattern is:

Subject + spend/spends/spent + amount + on + noun/gerund

Examples:

• We spent the whole afternoon on cleaning the house.
• He spends too much money on video games.
• They will spend their savings on a vacation.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• ❌ “I spent on a new phone.” → ✅ “I spent money on a new phone.”
• ❌ “She spends on studying.” → ✅ “She spends time on studying.”
• Remember: spend usually needs an object (money, time, etc.) before on.

Practice Tips

Try writing three sentences about what you spent time or money on today using the correct structure. For example:

Today I spent 30 minutes on reading news articles.