«طَالِبِ الْمَال بِلَا مَالْ زَيِّ حَامِلِ الْمَيَّهْ فِي الْغُرْبَالْ»

The saying holds that making money requires money to begin with. It targets a lack of starting capital, not being poor in general. A person with no capital to plant crops, stock goods, or invest has nothing that can grow into profit, so their effort slips away, just as water runs straight through a sieve.

In practice it works as a blunt judgment of impossibility, not mere difficulty. It dismisses ambitions of earning or expanding wealth when the basic means are absent, and suggests that labor alone, without resources to multiply, cannot produce growing returns. It can also gently mock someone who expects results from an obviously empty foundation.

Use it when someone plans to earn returns from farming, trade, or investment without any starting funds, to stress that the effort cannot succeed. It suits skeptical remarks about unrealistic business schemes and conversations about why capital must come first.