Suffer financial depletion, just before the fall? (4,4,7)
I believe the answer is:
lose ones balance
'financial depletion just before the fall?' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'suffer' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'suffer' could be 'lose' (losing is a kind of suffering) and 'lose' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lose ones balance that I've seen before include "about to collapse?" , "go into the red" , "Go into debt, presumably" , "Falter" .)