The phrase "a marginal existence" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a way of living that is barely acceptable or on the fringes of society, often implying a lack of stability or security.
Example: "After losing his job, he found himself leading a marginal existence, struggling to make ends meet."
Alternatives: "a precarious life" or "an insignificant existence."
"Fassbinder often repeated that there was no such thing as a marginal existence," he said.
He lost his job and lived a marginal existence in Brooklyn and, for many years, in Harlem.
The performers of this music and its accompanying dances live a marginal existence, admired as artists, but scorned for exposing themselves to the male gaze.
Its hardy residents (fewer than 300, according to the 2010 census) eke out a marginal existence in a place that suggests a crumbling, junk-strewn trailer park.
Short fiction can still find its way into print and find readers, but movies that run less than feature length lead a marginal existence, serving as résumé builders for artists and programming filler for festivals.
As for Fields, who had recently moved to an inexpensive apartment in Ohio, his turbulent formative years in northern Kentucky were marked by reports of abusive behavior toward his disabled mother and a marginal existence since graduating from high school.
Phenomenology in the United States lived a rather marginal existence for quite some time, notwithstanding the meritorious journal of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research founded by Husserl's student Marvin Farber, who was also the author of The Foundation of Phenomenology (1943).
By thus shrinking the policy menu, Mr. Clinton has saved the Democratic Party from an increasingly marginal existence as the anti-globalization party, a party that denies the world's destiny rather than shape it, a party faithful to its ideals but unable to realize them.
But it led him to a penniless and marginal existence.
In "Rock-and-Roll-Fantasy" a young man whose entire life is wrapped up in music slowly fades into the margins of his already marginal existence.
He was told he was schizophrenic and that he would have to come to terms with a life of disability and marginal existence.
