easy come, easy go

Things easily acquired may be lost just as easily.

A phrase suggesting lack of concern over how things turn out, and particularly over money: “She never took things very seriously; ‘easy come, easy go’ was her motto.”

Readily won and readily lost, as in Easy come, easy go—that’s how it is for Mark when he plays the stock market. This phrase states a truth known since ancient times and expressed in numerous proverbs with slightly different wording ( lightly come, lightly go; quickly come, quickly go). The adverb easy was substituted in the early 1800s.