Money Tips for ADHD That Actually Work

if you have ADHD most personal finance advice might feel wildly off base in this video I'm going to give you some tips that might actually be much more helpful for you if you have ADHD if you're new here what's up my name is Lindsay I'm a Certified Financial therapist and clinical social worker and I'm going to help you understand the emotional side of money with traditional personal finance it is very rigid it's very rural space and not only does that not work for most people it really doesn't work for people who have ADHD so let's just kind of get a lay of the land and do a quick overview of what ADHD is ADHD is a type of neurodiversity that impacts a person's executive functioning and emotional regulation and over the past few years ADHD has exploded in the online World particularly on Tick Tock and I think you know a lot of people get all bent out of shape like ah people are self-diagnosing on Tick Tock or is my belief system is much more like we were probably on under diagnosing and missing a lot of neurodiversity and so now we at least have some language to help people understand what might have been going on in their relationship with money ADHD falls into two main buckets executive dysfunction or difficulty with executive functioning and emotional regulation the way that executive dysfunction can look in ADHD includes disorganization problems prioritizing poor time management skills problems focusing on a task or struggling with multitasking fun fact nobody can multitask but adhders have an even harder time with it poor planning and problems following through and completing tasks as kids and also as adults they often heard things like oh they're really smart if they could just put their head down and focus or they have a lot of potential those are a lot of key words but folks who ended up being diagnosed with ADHD later in life often heard about themselves as kids and as adults when it comes to things like work reviews there's often things like you really just gotta focus more you really gotta put your head down I know you're smart I know you're bright but like you just need to focus a little bit more or getting a lot of feedback about time management or disorganization things like that the other main way that ADHD shows up is through emotional regulation and that looks like impulsiveness excessive activity or restlessness low frustration tolerance so things tend to get under their skin a bit more quickly also associated with mood swings being described as like a hot head or having a short fuse and trouble coping with stress now as you can imagine this fun fun combination of struggling with executive functioning and struggling with emotional regulation means that money management is Rife to be a a hot mess for most people with ADHD and some of the traditional things like just stay organized track all of your expenses plan for the future are really freaking hard for the person who has ADHD because there is such a struggle and so many difficulties with organization getting bills in the mail getting notices tend to feel incredibly overwhelming and tips about thinking ahead are really hard because with ADHD your brain is really focused on what is happening right now and it can be hard to plan for what's happening next week let alone what's happening in 10 years 20 years 30 years I'm going to give you some tips that might be helpful for you take the ones that work try them out and leave the ones that don't okay first thing I'm gonna say is automate automate automate automate as much as you possibly can I personally put my bills on autopay so I put all of my regular expenses on One credit card and then I also have that credit card on autopay that helps me to make sure that my regular bills are being paid and also my credit card bill is being paid I personally use a credit card because I like getting points for it but if that adds another layer of frustration to your ADHD brain don't worry about it just put your bills on autopay and tie them to your checking account another way that you can automate is setting up automatic retirement contributions and opting into increasing your retirement contributions every single year most retirement accounts will allow you to increase your retirement contributions automatically by half a percent one percent or two percent every single year that way you're automatically increasing your retirement contributions without worrying about having to go into your brokerage account type it in add it up all that stuff if you can automate that fantastic while we're on the topic of robots find other services that can help you I love the subscription Buster within the upwise app that helps you to kind of see which subscriptions you might be paying duplicates of or you might have similar ones all of us are pretty prone to struggling with those like free trials and then forgetting to cancel after seven or 30 days but when it comes to ADHD like might as well forget about it having something like that in place that can kind of tell you hey here's where your sub descriptions here are the areas where your double pen can be super helpful also services like unsubscribe me taking you off of email and mailing list because with ADHD folks tend to be a bit more prone to impulse buying so if we can remove some of the shiny flash sales or deals Landing under doorstep or on your inbox that's great too another thing I like to do is something called body doubling it sounds way weirder than it is but it's basically having an external person help to hold you accountable particularly when you're doing those financial tasks that are just really hard I'm recording this just after tax season and so when I had that big stack of things that I needed to send over to my accountant I used body doubling body doubling is having a person literally in person or over a video call where you are saying I'm working on this one task for this specific amount of time and there's something about having that external accountability in particular with a person for ADHD that can help them to stay on task for me I use a service called Focus mate it pairs you with somebody anywhere in the world for 25 50 or 90 minute sessions and the way that it works is you state or type into the chat what you are working on at the top of the session and it connects you over a video service very similar to like Zoom or FaceTime you each share what you're working on there's a little timer in the corner which is fantastic and then at the end of the session a little bell goes off and each of you unmutes yourself and shares whether or not you accomplish that task or whether or not you were able to stay focused I joined Focus mate in probably 2020 and it has been a game changer for me doing everything from that staff of things that I needed to scan and send to my accountant all the way to day-to-day tasks like as a therapist doing my progress notes or checking my email another thing I mentioned that focusmate has a little timer built into it timers are fantastic for people who have ADHD because adhders have a superpower called hyper focus and when it comes to personal fine notes we can get hyper focused on the how and lose sight of the Y meaning I need a new budgeting service so I spend all this time hyper focusing creating this amazing spreadsheet of all of these different budgeting services from YNAB to upwise to Mint to personal Capital Etc listing out all the pros and cons and before I know it I spent 90 minutes organizing all the things but I haven't actually set up a budget so having a timer to say I will spend 30 minutes researching a budgeting tool and at the end of the 30 minutes I will choose a budgeting tool is super super helpful this also works for deadlines like I I will choose by the end of the day or just as that reminder if during that 30 minute timer your ADHD bring those elsewhere at least you're not spending three hours with that ADHD brain wandering off you have a 30 minute timer where you're like oh let me try that again and restart the timer for 30 minutes and see if this time around I could choose a budgeting app adhders also tend to be pretty impulsive so there are two different tips that I offer for you if you struggle with impulsivity one is to create a list of the things that you want to buy I personally do this on my birthday I've shared this before I write out a list in a Google doc of all the things that I want that year be it a new pair of winter boots or an upgraded bag or a new piece of luggage whatever it is I jot down all of the things that I want to buy that year and then throughout the course of the year if I'm out and about traveling shopping what have you and I see a pair of black boots I cross reference it against that list and if black boots are on my list of something that I need then I give myself permission to buy it meanwhile if I found a really funky cool pair of bright green boots I'm going to check that list and if they're not there I'm going to say remember when I was in like my wise brain I told myself I didn't need that I give myself permission to you know enjoy those boots from afar but they are not coming home with me so that is a way to deal with impulsivity and with lists other people do things like put them on an Amazon wishlist and then give themselves a cooling off period of 24 48 or 72 hours and if they still want that item after that amount of time they give themselves permission to buy it other people also just do this analog old school style they put it on paper and pen or you can always just put it in the notes app in your phone another way to deal with impulsivity is to give yourself a little spontaneity or impulsivity fund this is exactly what it sounds like every single week or every single month depending on your income in your paycheck Cadence you set aside a little bit of money from your checking account and move it into a savings account specifically titled impulsivity fun money go wild fund whatever you want to call it then when you're out and about shopping and again something super exciting and sparkly and fun Sparks your excitement you can look at that fund and if you have the money there then you are allowed to spend it freely on whatever it is if that doesn't work for you I also love to literally go to the h ATM at the beginning of the month and withdraw a certain amount of Safe Money 60 bucks 150 bucks whatever allows in your spending plan or in your budget putting that cash in your wallet and then throughout the course of the month if something fun comes up exciting that you want to do or that you want to buy you can literally peek in your wallet and if the money is in there then you can go do that thing and if not then you have to lovingly hold yourself accountable and say no so those are a couple different ways to kind of scratch that itch of spontaneity finally put a little timer in your phone once a month for those like adhdisms that just happen so you could set a reminder with a little bullet list of things that you often forget for a lot of adhders it's things like groceries double checking before you go out to the grocery store you check your little list like don't forget to check the granola cabinet I don't have a granola cabinet I know I said that but you might be like oh I need that granola when you're out grocery shopping and on this little reminder list it says check your granola cabinet and lo and behold you have six bags of grain free granola so you actually don't need anymore same thing on that reminder list you might have a little reminder that pops up that says make sure you actually return that bag of stuff to TJ Maxx that you told yourself you were going to return so having this little kind of catch-all list of those tasks that tend to fall off can be super super helpful another thing is to just have some compassion for the way that your brain was built ADHD brains are not bad they are not broken they have some amazing skills a lot of adhders have a ton of creativity they get incredibly excited about things they have this amazing capacity as I mentioned earlier to hyper focus on something so not all is bad it's just that the ADHD brain was not necessarily designed for this kind of day and age so if you miss a bill payment if you forgot to check your credit score you know life happens have a bit of compassion for yourself and turn to some of these tips to see if you can make some meaning of that mistake and make some changes moving forward I hope those tips helped you if you have ADHD or if you have a loved one who has ADHD and you're trying to manage your finances together at the end of the day take what works for you leave what doesn't and remember that compassion over everything is going to help you on this journey of creating a healthier relationship with your money whether you have a neurodivergence or not make sure to comment below if you have ADHD and tell me which of these tips you're going to try out or maybe you have a tip that I completely missed and might be helpful for other ADHD or neurodivergent folks sharing is caring so pop up below and let us know also if you have ADHD and you have a specific question or pain point that you're struggling with did you know you can submit questions directly to me and I might answer them on an upcoming episode all you have to do is go to mindmoneybalance.com ask that's mind moneybalance.com ask to submit your question and I might answer it on an upcoming episode

Channel: Lindsay Bryan-Podvin

Views: 3,376

Keywords: money tips for adhd that actually work, money tips for adhd, how to manage money with adhd, money tips and tricks, money and neurodiversity, financial therapy, adhd life, neurodiverse life, how to manage money with neurodiversity, adult adhd, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, adhd money management, impulse spending, adult adhd tips, adult adhd strategies, mind money balance, how to save money, money saving tips, mental health awareness

Id: GQonIPC1eCI

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 24 2023