Lucila:
I think that this is not a common sentence.
We are working with a
saying which is supposed to be popular in a Spanish speaking country.
Therefore, the best thing to do is searching carefully its
exact meaning (or as accurate as possible) in order to find a
similar saying, well known in the target language even if the words used are not the literal translation of those in the original request.
That's why all these people above are spending (not wasting) so much time on it.