Basic Trope: A formally poor character is now rich.
- Straight: Bob used to be a very poor person, barely having enough money to get food and keep his home, but now, he lives in a large mansion and has a billion dollars.
- Exaggerated: Bob used to be a very poor person in an extremely poor country with barely any infrastructure where he lived in a shack made out of debris, and had to struggle against starvation every day by foraging through the wilderness, but now he has moved to a richer country and become the richest person in the world with hundreds of billions of dollars in holdings and investments.
- Downplayed: Bob used to be a somewhat poor person, living in an apartment and burdened with student debt, but now he has paid off all his debt and managed to save up enough money to buy a nice house in the suburbs.
- Justified:
- He got married to a rich wife.
- His business was successful.
- He saved a lot of money overtime.
- He got lucky.
- He won the lottery.
- He inherited money from one of his family members.
- Inverted: Riches to Rags
- Subverted: It looks like Bob has finally clawed his way out of poverty and has just finished making a very stable foundation for the rest of his life, but then he loses all his money after a freak accident which causes him to be charged with a very high hospital bill or a natural disaster destroys his home/business.
- Double Subverted: Thankfully, Bob's stock portfolio rapidly grew in value even as he was lying in the hospital, catapulting him back to riches.
- Parodied: Bob used to be a very poor person, but he got hold of a money printer and printed enough money to buy the entire world.
- Zig Zagged: Bob used to be a very poor person struggling to survive paycheck to paycheck, but then he wins the lottery. However, Bob recklessly spends all his money and ends up poor again. Bob is then approached by several companies to make a movie detailing the dangers of winning the lottery, and the movie is successful which causes Bob to become rich again off the royalties. Then Bob gambles away all his money and becomes poor yet again, but by now Bob is such a celebrity for his wild and unpredictable life story that dozens of biographies are written about him, the royalties of which make Bob rich again.
- Averted: Bob is a very poor person, and stays that way for the rest of the story.
- Enforced: The writers are making a story about the American Dream and want an uplifting rags to riches story to back it up.
- Lampshaded: "Wow, Bob, it's amazing how far you've come. The last time I saw you, you were begging at a street corner, and now you own a mansion!"
- Invoked: Despite being very poor, Bob tries to work very hard at his job in the hopes of eventually becoming rich.
- Exploited: Bob used to be a very poor person, but now he lives in a large mansion and has a billion dollars. His family members come out of the woodwork and constantly ask him for money.
- Defied: Bob is a very poor person. He is given an opportunity to gain millions of dollars, but turns it down in favor of living a simpler life.
- Discussed: "Hey, Bob, don't feel so bad about being poor. Maybe one of these days you'll hit the jackpot. Like in one of those rags to riches stories."
- Conversed: "Isn't it stupid how the poorest, most miserable person somehow becomes rich in those rags to riches stories? Getting rich is mostly about luck, anyways."
- Implied: Bob is a millionaire, but he still dresses in simple clothes, lives a modest lifestyle, and sympathizes with the poor, frequently donating to charity. One of his family heirlooms is actually a prized blanket that used to keep him warm when he lived out on the streets himself.
- Deconstructed: Bob used to be a very poor person, but now he lives in a large mansion and has a billion dollars. His inexperience in dealing with such large sums of money mean that even though he doesn't recklessly spend it all away, he doesn't know how to invest it and doesn't know how to use loopholes to avoid getting taxed. By the end of the story, Bob is reduced to being part of the middle class after most of his wealth was taxed away, having been forced to sell the mansion and downgrade to a suburban home in order to pay off the property taxes.
- Reconstructed: Bob used to be a very poor person, but now he lives in a large mansion and has a billion dollars. Although he is personally inexperienced in dealing with such large sums of money, he is smart enough to use that money to hire people who do have that experience. Bob's army of accountants, lawyers, and investors make sure that his wealth can be passed down intact to future generations.
- Played for Laughs: Bob used to be a very poor person, but now he lives in a large mansion and has a billion dollars. He immediately turns the mansion into the #1 place across the world for nonstop parties, using the wealth to fund the most silly and extravagant performers and gimmicks... at least until the money runs out.
- Played for Drama: Bob used to be a very poor person, but he took up a job as a professional hitman. At first it was mostly about paying the bills, and the contracts were usually nothing more than helping random people permanently settle their domestic disputes for a couple thousand bucks, but as he proved his worth, shady actors in the criminal underworld took notice and offered him more and more lucrative contracts. Bob gathered hundreds of millions of dollars across the years whacking corporate executives, army generals, diplomats, heads of state, mafia bosses, and the like. Eventually he built up enough money and decided to retire, buying a mansion at a hefty discount from one of his many pleased clients. But along with friends, Bob also made a lot of enemies. More years passed and Bob got married and had several kids and established himself as a generous benefactor in the local community. When word eventually got out that the "respectable" Bob was actually a former assassin, the whole world comes crashing down on him and his family...
