Can someone please provide an idiom for a situation when one gains nothing from a certain affair, but still has to pay the price for it.
For example: a person goes to a resturant to have a meal with limited money, and ends up breaking a very expensive glass on his/her way in and now has to pay for it with the only money he had.
henceforth, the person did not eat anything and yet had to suffer a loss/ pay a price.
this is being asked as for a translation of a famous hindi/urdu proverb "Khaya piya kuch nahi, glass torda bara aana" which literally can be translated as: Did not ate or drank, yet had to break a glass worth 12 cents. (assuming 12 cents in that period was a lot of money)
Best Answer
You won't find this in dictionaries, and I suspect it translates literally into other languages:
being over before it began
"It was over before it began."