A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted



A plot where one non-rich character has a huge and very sudden increase in expendable income. This might be for any reason, such as winning a lottery, inheriting the fortune of a rich friend or a long lost family member, getting a better job, crime, inventing the latest popular gadget, or even because something was delivered to the wrong address. Simultaneously, however, they are handed the Idiot Ball.

Almost invariably, Acquired Situational Narcissism makes the character start to act like an Upper Class Twit, spend like there's no tomorrow, mindlessly buy "whatever it is that rich people like", blow off their former friends as has-beens, etc. The Intimidating Revenue Service and distant relatives never heard of before or since may also demand their share of the character's winnings. Within a few days, one of the following happens:
 * The character somehow manages to completely exhaust their fortune except for just enough to buy themselves back into the life they had before.
 * The bank, mafia, CIA, etc., realizes their mistake and sends a collection agent to confiscate the missing funds.
 * They get fired from their new job for gross negligence, making the company look bad, insulting the boss, etc.
 * They get in trouble for something, and to get out of jail time, a mob hit, etc., they must abandon their fortune.

At that point, the character is sincerely worried about their future and the people they left behind, perhaps for the first time in their life. They are now so low that a life in Perpetual Poverty is starting to look good to them, having insulted their old friends, quit their old job, etc., they are likely on the streets. Expect the character to be Easily Forgiven; their friends blow it off as completely unimportant, their old boss hasn't been able to find anyone willing to apply for their old job, the person they sold their old house to is moving out of the area and sells it back to them, and the collection agents go home. In shows where Status Quo Is God, the episode's end will have the character's lifestyle restored to exactly what it had been before. If not, there may be a surprise twist which leaves the character with something after all, perhaps something that couldn't be had for All That Glitters.

Opposite of Broke Episode. Contrast Rags to Riches, where they get to keep the money. Compare Credit Card Plot, in which the character only thinks they've hit the jackpot.

Anime and Manga

 * Kankichi Ryotsu of Kochikame had been making his fortunes multiple times throughout the series whether from inheritance, gambling or selling popular products. He always lose all his wealth from overspending, bad investments or from accidents. He's back to being a patrol officer again.

Comic Books

 * The Serenity comic book Better Days. Seriously, it actually happens to Malcolm Reynolds.
 * The Joker's Millions issue in Batman.
 * Has happened in Donald Duck comics multiple times, usually to Donald, sometimes involving his uncle's money (though obviously that isn't usually all lost, or it's lost back to Scrooge). At least once Scrooge even lets him "take care of his business" to have him lose as much money as possible when he realises he himself can't bear to carry out a bet to do so even though that would lead to greater gains.
 * José Carioca once met a gypsy who predicted he'd get a lot of money but he didn't take it seriously. Eventually, he met two men with what he recognized as a stolen jewel. Knowing the owner's offered a reward, he took it from the "bad guys" and went to the owner's manor, where he got a reward, becoming wealthy. Until the "bad guys" revealed themselves as cops who were about to deliver the jewel back. José had to give it back. The gypsy later told him she'd have told him his wealth wouldn't last long if he had let her finish reading her hand.
 * The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck had Scrooge being a former victim of the trope before becoming wealthy for good, albeit he didn't lose it out of foolishness.

Films -- Live-Action

 * The Jerk. Pretty much the whole plot of the movie.
 * Dumb and Dumber: Lloyd has absolutely no financial savvy.

Literature

 * This happens, or has happened, in one character's backstory in Stephen King's The Stand. The pop musician Larry Underwood had one big hit and made lots of money out of it, but soon found that there wasn't that much after all and anyway he'd certainly spent it all partying like an idiot. After the world changes and has to be rebuilt, he never mentions to anyone that he was the guy who made that popular song.
 * The book, Money Can't Buy Love. Before winning the Maryland Lottery, the heroine is broke, hates her job, and her boyfriend is slow to commit. When she wins, she cheats on her now-fiance with a much younger man, alienates the only two friends she had and quits her job. She also spends foolishly, buying a new car, a mansion, a studio, and a brand-new truck for the younger man. At the end,
 * In Maskerade, the witch Nanny Ogg writes a book and while not wanting to be treated like, er, royalty, ensures she gets a $5,000 advance for her book from a formerly reluctant publisher who has not encountered irritated witches before. Temporarily, this is the most money she has ever had at one time, but her friend Granny Weatherwax soon ensures it is spent well and responsibly.
 * In Treasure Island, Ben Gunn (who is slightly bonkers) squandered his share of the treasure in three weeks.
 * According to Long John, who got married and opened an inn, every other member of Flint's original crew did this. He gives advice to a new recruit on how not to.
 * Candide in Voltaire's Candide gets fabulously rich at the midpoint of the story. He then proceeds to lose the money in various ways and has only the tiniest fraction left at the end, just enough to buy a farm and become an ordinary peasant.
 * This was a common reason to get Jack Aubrey back to sea in the early Aubrey-Maturin books - he'd bring home prize money at the end of a book, and will have spent it all by the beginning of the next book. Once Aubrey's fortune was stable and secure, he tried to help his crews avert the same boom-bust cycle with mixed success.

Live-Action TV

 * In a two part episode of The Bob Newhart Show, Orphan Dentist Dr Jerry Robinson spends a new found fortune to advertise looking for the parents who put him up for adoption.
 * In The Twilight Zone episode The Man in the Bottle, a genie grants a shop-keeper and his wife four wishes. One of those wishes is for a million dollars (which they quickly lose by sharing it with their friends and having to give the rest to the IRS). Despite the four wishes, the couple ends up in the exact same condition as they were at the beginning of the episode. But considering the third wish (to the be the leader of a country that can't be voted out. The genie turns the husband into Hitler at the end of World War II no less). Its was better to be in moderate living then nothing at all.
 * In the "Lotto Fever" episode of Cold Case, the victim wins 8 million dollars in the Pennsylvania Lottery. He spends his money foolishly (huge house, race car, go-karts for himself and his friends, etc) but he was still the nice guy everyone remembers, and even gave money to his friends and family. Before he was killed  he had enough money left to move back into his old apartment and was working at his old job again, but not before
 * One episode of Married With Children has Jefferson finding out that a doll treasured by his wife, Marcy, is worth millions, so he gets a different doll, switches it with the one Marcy owns, and then sells her doll for the fortune without her knowing, while getting Al to pretend to be him on the night he does this in order to prevent Marcy from becoming suspicious, on the promise that Al would get his share upon Jefferson's return. The problem? Jefferson loses the entire fortune at a casino on the way back, meaning Al had just spent a night with a neighbor he abhorred... FOR NOTHING.
 * While many of the drug deals arranged by the Trailer Park Boys are in fact successful and net a large amount of money, our heroes typically end up quickly spending it or losing it altogether. Of course, this means they have to come up with another drug deal in the next season.
 * Spin City has an episode where Paul wins the jackpot on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Ensuing episodes have him use the money to open a political-themed restaurant named "Wonk". Hilarity Ensues.
 * Castle had the titular character recall how he acted out this trope when while he was still in college his first book became a bestseller and he became rich overnight. He quickly spent his new fortune on expensive luxuries. Luckily for him his next book also sold really well and he learned to be smarter with his money by then. In the present Castle is portrayed as being quite rich but so practical with money that it does not really show.
 * Another episode featured a murder victim who won the lottery and then seemed to spend the money on extravagant things as well as giving money away to homeless people. Castle figures out that this was due to
 * On Parks and Recreation Jean-Ralphio gets a lot of money which he uses to start Entertainment 720, an entertainment company. He hires Tom to help him and together they spend the money on extremely extravagant gimmicks. They hire a professional basketball player to shoot hoops all day in their office and give a free iPod to anyone who visits.
 * A subdued example happens on Firefly. After the crew knocks over the Ariel hospital, they've got a small fortune in medical supplies. They get to enjoy their wealth for about half an episode before they end up spending most of it to spring Wash from Niska's torture room. The show was cancelled before they managed to fence the Lassiter they acquired in "Trash".
 * An episode of the Facts of Life, wherein Jo's dad burns through $300K in a few days.

Radio

 * About a billion Amos & Andy episodes involve Andy and/or Kingfish coming across money and then losing all of it by the end of the show.

Theatre
"Le Bret (with the action of throwing a bag): How! The bag of crowns?... Cyrano: Paternal bounty, in a day, thou'rt sped! Le Bret: How live the next month?... Cyrano: I have nothing left. Le Bret: Folly! Cyrano: But what a graceful action! Think!"
 * In the first scene of Peter Schickele's a capella opera Go for Broke, John Q. Public wins the lottery. In the next several scenes, "Taxes," "Charity," "Kin," and "Company at the Bar," he has to part with his winnings. There is a happy ending in the final scene.
 * Cyrano De Bergerac: Cyrano received his parental bounty and used it all to pay the entrance fees of the Burgundy Theater at Act I Scene IV, so Cyrano has not money for the rest of the month. Le Bret lampshades Cyrano’s folly, but Cyrano calls this "a graceful act".

Western Animation
"Granny: A fool and his money... Early: Together again!"
 * In Futurama, Fry discovers he'd left some cash in a forgotten bank account, and the accrued interest has made him fabulously wealthy. When he buys a can of (extinct) anchovies Mom has her boys kidnap him to get his PIN number (1077) so she can steal all his money and be forced to sell the anchovies (which hold the secret to producing a very cheap, but potent, robot oil). She gives up when she realizes he doesn't know this, instead intending to eat the anchovies.
 * Another had the whole nation getting a tax three hundred dollar refund due to Zap raiding a spider planet and bringing back the riches. In the course of the episode sees all the cast wasting it in some form or another (Fry buying coffee, Bender supplies to steal a rare cigar, Farnsworth on a temporary stem cell procedure, Amy a tattoo, Hermes a walking pair of stilts to impress his son etc...) save for Zoidburg who, for the first time in his life having more money then ever, tries to "live like a rich person". He gets shot down when his refund is revealed to be peanuts to the social elite. But a fire breaks out the at reception for the spider people's loot. Costing Nixon, in addition to the tax break, millions. Zoidburg, rather, spends his on a small buffet which he invites everyone to join in on.
 * Happens to Ron in the Kim Possible episode "Ron Millionaire."
 * Interestingly, Ron never actually runs out of money. His entire fortune (from royalties piad for his creation of the popular food, the Naco) is stolen from him by Dr. Drakken because...Ron kept it all in his cargo pants pockets. Ironically, not even Drakken gets to use it, since he spends it all on a giant laser cannon...which reflects off the moon and back toward his lair, destroying the laser cannon completely.
 * That episode of Rugrats where Chuckie's dad won ten million dollars in a sweepstakes, but lost it all when he made a bad investment (on Drew's advice).
 * This happens to The Jetsons. They lose it all, not so much because George was an idiot, but because his company's product goes under.
 * In another episode, George won the lottery. However, a collapse of the economy of Venus caused the value of the prize to decrease considerably before he had a chance to convert it into dollars. When George was told he won, the prize was worth 7.5 million dollars. The collapse caused its worth to be practically nada.
 * Ickis went through this on an episode of Aaahh Real Monsters; the monsters' currency is toenails, so he struck it rich by stealing from an eccentric millionaire who saves his toenail clippings. Ickis gets greedy and is nearly caught by the human, who concludes it was all a dream... telling him to clean up his act. Meanwhile, Ickis ends up losing his stash of toenails on his way home.
 * In an episode of Code Monkeys, the staff borrow against their IPOs and become very wealthy. When they leave their jobs, Gameavision stock plummets, bringing most of the staff to ruin. Except Dave, who invested his new money wisely, but ends up using it to bail out his former co-workers.
 * One episode of SpongeBob SquarePants has SpongeBob and Patrick find a giant pearl, which they sell for ludicrous amounts of money. Somehow SpongeBob ends up with all of the money, buys a mansion, and gives the rest away to his house guests. Soon as they find out he has no money left, they leave and SpongeBob realizes he shouldn't have neglected Patrick because he had money.
 * In an episode of Family Guy, Lois' aunt dies, leaving her a beautiful mansion in Newport, RI, along with a bit of money to get her started. Everything seems to be going well, until in a misguided attempt to fit in, Peter bids a ridiculous sum of money on a vase. To be able to pay for it, he sold the mansion, which was valuable enough because it was discovered it used to be a Presidential whorehouse. Peter even kept an old photo of Abe Lincoln to seel so he could buy back his old house (which he had sold to be able to pay for the mansion's hired help) for double the money he got when he sold it.
 * The 11th season premiere plays this straight. The Griffins win $150M in the lottery. Peter being Peter, immediately quits his job, spends the money on outrageous items, treats his friends like crap, and becomes broke and homeless in a month's time. Of course everything is back to normal by the end of the episode.
 * For double irony, the family, sitting homeless on the street, decides their only chance is to try to win the lottery again. Cut to the exact same scene with Lois saying she can't believe they won and lost all that money TWICE.
 * In the Animaniacs episode "Temporary Insanity", Yakko Warner tricked Plotz into signing a check worth zillions. As soon as Yakko showed it to his siblings, Plotz ripped it out.
 * DuckTales (1987): In one episode, a family that won the lottery moved into a mansion next to Scrooge. By the end of the episode, they spent so much money they had to move back to their old home.
 * Woody Woodpecker fell victim to this trope when he inherited some money Buzz Buzard decided to con out of him.
 * However, it was Buzz's turn to fall into the trope in The New Woody Woodpecker Show. Buzz and Woody were on a Scavenger Hunt where incomplete proverbs were the clues to the items they had to find. They were tied when there was only one item left to be found and the clue was "A (space) and his money are soon parted". Claiming to have no idea of how to solve that clue, Woody proposed that he and Buzz shared the money prize. As Buzz was enjoying the money, Woody introduced Buzz to the game's host as the fool to be soon parted from the money.
 * The Simpsons: Homer once bought a hair-growth product that actually worked and it eventually got him a promotion. Homer ignored Marge's advice about saving money for emergencies and it came back to bite him when Bart, while trying to use the product to grow himself a beard, accidentally spilled it out and Homer had no money to buy a new batch before becoming bald again and being demoted back to his old job.
 * In another episode, Bart pretended to be kidnapped to avoid punishment for sneaking out. When Lisa found out the truth, Homer told her they should keep it a secret because he had already sold the story for a fortune he had already lost. While how he lost is anyone's guess, since we were never given a clue, we can be sure it was out of foolishness, since it's Homer we're talking about.
 * Early from Squidbillies fell into this trap the instant he had a legitimate lawsuit against Dan Haylen, letting himself be bought off with a settlement consisting of a few motorized chrome beer hats.


 * Done in The Oblongs when Milo, Biff and Chip find some money in a car they all brought (Milo loan some money). Not surprising they spend it like crazy despite threats from the Mayor and city staff since it was bribe money meant for them. Subverted though as Milo doesn't act any different with his friends and it actually make the boys popular. But they lose it when Milo tosses a sparkler onto the remaining cash pile and burn it all up.
 * An episode of Garfield and Friends has the titular fat cat winning the lottery after Jon tosses away his lottery ticket. The two and Odie get to live the high life until an interview reveals that Garfield was underage when he won, thus leading to the winnings being voided (despite Jon telling them that he was the one who bought the ticket) and the winner being declared as the interviewer himself.

Real Life

 * There are many stories where real people, after winning the lottery, have lost all of their money and are completely broke in a short time. Unlike on TV, there is rarely if ever a Reset Button.
 * To name just one example: Michael Carroll, the self-proclaimed "king of the chavs". A rubbish collector who won £9.7m in a lottery in 2002, he continued to have run-ins with the law, and spent his winnings like it grew on trees. By 2010, he had filed for bankruptcy and gone back to his old job, but has expressed no regrets about how he spent the lot.
 * Many stories of people who lose everything they won in the lottery usually stems from the fact that the sudden wealth overwhelms them and they start to spend everything, not realizing that even several million dollars is not infinite. What's worse, some of them get so caught up the fever that they blow through not only their lottery winnings, but all their original savings as well.
 * The documentary Reversal of Fortune involved giving a homeless man $100,000 in cash and seeing what he did with it. It was gone within 6 months, and indeed he wound up in even worse financial shape then he was before.
 * Pirates were notorious for spending their fortune after a successful raid on booze and prostitutes in the manner of days.
 * German actor Klaus Kinski typically starred in a successful movie, then spent all his salary on partying with friends, expensive clothing and 5-star hotels (and drugs), resulting in him becoming broke after a short time. After he had to live in a run-down single-room apartment for a few weeks, he often resorted to phoning his old friend Werner Herzog once again to ask if he had any more film roles available. Rinse and repeat.