I need a plot for a good honest guy to loose a lot of money

[Sunadmire]

I am thinking to write a story about a rich good, hardworking honest man (farmer) who looses all his wealth and became indebted to a woman who was jealous of him for marrying another woman.
The easy way out is his wife contracting a mysterious illness and dies - already part of the planned story. But this may not be enough to explain the farmer's sudden loss of richess.
I am no medical expert and don't want to be caught out by describing a headache as his wife's illness.
Any ideas to brew into a story will be appreciated.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Some ideas that might work:

1) Embezzlement. This works particularly well if you want a villain for the story. The farmer has invested his money and his accountant or "wealth management expert" has siphoned it off and skipped town. The farmer does not notice until the bills are due for his wife's very expensive medical treatment, and then he discovers he is flat broke.

2) Catastrophic crop failure. Many farmers face the specter of complete bankruptcy if they cannot harvest sufficient crops to pay off everything they have invested in seeds, fertilizer, gasoline /diesel fuel for their harvesting machines, payroll for employees, etc. The guy may be a millionaire, but if all of his crops fail completely, he will be out millions of dollars all at once.

3) Bad investments. Most or all of his money was tied up in what looked like solid companies, but when a couple of them suddenly went belly-up (perhaps due to the pandemic), the stocks became worthless.

 

[jaF0]

I am thinking to write a story about a rich good, hardworking honest man (farmer) who looses all his wealth ....

That can be a few thousand dollars. Farmers are not wealthy. Most struggle from year to year. One large storm can wipe them out. A traffic accident involving a piece of their equipment that gets into a lawsuit and their done.

That could be your twist though .... a lawsuit. The attorney handling the case is the woman he slighted.

 

[Handley_Page]

I am thinking to write a story about a rich good, hardworking honest man (farmer) who looses all his wealth and became indebted to a woman who was jealous of him for marrying another woman.
The easy way out is his wife contracting a mysterious illness and dies - already part of the planned story. But this may not be enough to explain the farmer's sudden loss of richess.
I am no medical expert and don't want to be caught out by describing a headache as his wife's illness.
Any ideas to brew into a story will be appreciated.

The collapse of a money market like we suffered a few years ago would provinde a realistic loss scheme.
And a lot of people have suffered from cancer. . . .

 

[SamScribble]

A former banker once told me that the most common way that ordinary folk lose their fortunes is through the advice of investment consultants of one sort or another.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

A wealthy farmer is almost a contradiction in terms; most farmers are literally one crop failure away from bankruptcy, and when the farmer has bet his remaining money, re-mortgaged his home, and invested heavily in the future of a crop that fails the financial fallout can be catastrophic. If his wife then has an incurable disease or condition (such as Pancreatic cancer, which has a 1-year survival rate of 20%, but a 5-year survival rate of just 9% according the The American Cancer Society, and is generally considered incurable as yet) then you have the perfect storm of disastrous circumstances. Let the woman who hates him represent the bank or financiers who loaned him the money, and is now gleefully plotting the foreclosure, gaining her revenge on him for spurning her. The interesting part of the story should be how he gets out from under her thumb and regains his land and home; that would be a story worth reading.

 

[DanDraper]

Some ideas that might work:

3) Bad investments. Most or all of his money was tied up in what looked like solid companies, but when a couple of them suddenly went belly-up (perhaps due to the pandemic), the stocks became worthless.

I like the bad investment idea because it works with what's going on now. During the pandemic people were trying to make up for some losses by making stock investments. The pandemic could have an effect on the Farmer's business and he decides to give it a shot, but then it turns out he picked the wrong kinds of investments and he loses a lot more.

 

[GinnyPPC]

Someone dumps toxic waste on his cropland, has to pay to clean it up.

Or farm animal (bull?) gets loose and damages neighbor's property. Farmer has to pay for repairs.

 

[Rustyoznail]

As others have said, most crop farmers and beef/sheep farmers are one drought away from disaster. They rely on the bumper year to tide them over the poor years.

Australia has had its share of rural financial company failures that destroyed the lives of farmers that trusted them. Pyramid Building Society and Banksia Securities are two that come to mind. Banksia owed over $660M to mostly farmers. That was in 2012. The various lawsuits are still going. The stress that created has caused many deaths.

 

[lovecraft68]

How about a hacker steals their identity and money?

 

[Voboy]

Paying for his wife's [unsuccessful] treatment drained his bank account.

The more I think of this, the more I like it. The complexity of the lender having control over the man because her hated rival's death bankrupted him, and only she could save him... Great dialogue opportunities. Lots of invective. Hate-sex all around.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I am thinking to write a story about a rich good, hardworking honest man (farmer) who looses all his wealth and became indebted to a woman who was jealous of him for marrying another woman.
The easy way out is his wife contracting a mysterious illness and dies - already part of the planned story. But this may not be enough to explain the farmer's sudden loss of richess.
I am no medical expert and don't want to be caught out by describing a headache as his wife's illness.
Any ideas to brew into a story will be appreciated.

He responded to an email from Nigeria....

 

[Bramblethorn]

Foot-and-mouth disease hits his livestock. He pays a contractor to do some construction work but the contractor does a half-assed job and his money is eaten up trying to get it fixed. Trade war causes the bottom to drop out of the market for whatever it is he produces.

 

[LAHomedog]

Like most farmers he is living from season to season with not a lot of reserve in the bank.

During the height of the pandemic he loses most of his workers. They either are sick, scared, or simply don't show up for work -- a large problem in real life that is currently, dramatically affecting the food supply chain.

Because of the lack of workers he is behind on getting his fields and crops ready especially turning the soil, fertilizing properly so he can rotate his crops and getting the crops into the ground.

He falls for a hustler with a new "miracle grow" formula that he's heard about on social media and spends a lot of money on it mail order, mixes it into his soil and sprays the crops. The so-called fertilizer is using hexavalent chromium in its formula (the same stuff that poisoned everything in "Erin Brockovich." It kills his crops and like the people in real life in Erin Brockovich makes them both sick, his wife especially since she was mixing the stuff.

The loss of profit from his crops and the staggering medical costs for his wife crush him. The jealous woman hears about his situation because it is the talk of the community and she reaches out...

 

[colddiesel]

Back in the 1990's dozens of Aussie farmers went broke because they took out "cheap" loans denominated in Swiss francs. Problem was that the loans were unhedged and as the Swiss Franc shot up in value so did their debts.

The banks lent the money on security of the property and as preferred creditors under the bankruptcy laws had no interest in resolving the problem.