The phrase 'paltry sum of' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to an amount of money that is considered quite low or insignificant. For example: "He offered me a paltry sum of $20 for a week's work."
Now Fin wouldn't go home with the paltry sum of £5.
The government offered the Masai the paltry sum of £370,000 to relocate – money they have no intention of taking.
Fruitvale Station was made for the paltry sum of $900,000 and so far has made more than $17m.
It is dismaying that even the paltry sum of $40,000 should be paid for a reprise of this cynical strategy.
Gypo Nolan, O'Flaherty's protagonist, informs on a left-wing friend in the Irish civil war for the paltry sum of £20.
Murphy plays a bedsit loser who owes money (the pleasingly paltry sum of €1,000) to Gleeson's camel-coated loan shark, Darren Perrier.
And yet, with the typical selfish pride of people receiving paltry sums of taxpayer's money, all three held back the tears.
Hundreds of millions are doled out to companies like Atos and Capita, while our government does all it can to prise paltry sums of money from the hands of disabled people.
The adaptation fund, which is managed by the Global Environment Facility, an independent financial organization also established in Kyoto in 1997, has been criticized for being too difficult to tap and for raising paltry sums of money.
At the bottom of the pecking order, benefit fraudsters are pursued for relatively paltry sums of money, while at the top, accountancy firms help design tax laws and then instruct their clients how to get around them.
I know schools are strapped for cash, but it seems they are getting paltry sums of money, so why are they selling their souls to the devil?" he says.
