得不偿失 (dé bù cháng shī): Lose more than you gain — Meaning & Stroke Order

To save money by buying cheap goods, only for them to break quickly, is truly losing more than you gain.

Pursuing short-term profits at the expense of the ecological environment is definitely a case of losing more than you gain in the long run.

You're taking such a big risk just to save this little bit of money; don't you think it's a case of losing more than you gain?

To save time, he worked late into the night, but ended up getting sick the next day, which was really not worth it.

In order to win the argument, he didn't hesitate to hurt his friend's feelings, ending up alienating everyone; it was truly a case of losing more than he gained.

This kind of price-cutting promotion at the cost of product quality will not ultimately bring profits; on the contrary, it will result in losing more than you gain.

The company cut employee benefits to reduce costs, but this led to a loss of talent, ultimately proving to be not worth the effort.

Although the project was completed ahead of schedule, the team's morale plummeted due to overwork, making this a clearly pyrrhic victory where they lost more than they gained.