I've read through all the comments. So many fun idioms!

Here are a few more from Brazil:

1. In Portuguese: "Vender o almoço para comprar a janta."
   Literal translation: "Sell the lunch to buy the dinner."
   Meaning: used when people have very little money and are having trouble to pay their expenses. So, it's said they have to sell their lunch to be able to pay for their dinner. An equivalent idiom in English would be, "Live hand to mouth."
2. In Portuguese: "Nadar, nadar, nadar e morrer na praia."
   Literal translation: "Swim, swim, swim, and die on the beach."
   Meaning: this is used when someone works very hard to achieve something, only to fail miserably just when he/she's about to reach the goal. It's an analogy to survivors of a shipwreck who make a last-ditch effort to swim, swim, swim to the surface, only to die when they finally come out on the beach.
3. In Portuguese: "Como um peixe fora d'água."
   Literal translation: "Like a fish out of the water."
   Meaning: to feel totally out of place, like you don't belong there. In English, an equivalent expression would be, "A square peg in a round hole."

There are so many strange idioms here, but I drew a blank and had trouble even to gather these three... maybe I should take note when I remember other ones, for a next contest, who knows... trying to explain these idioms is a nice exercise too.