Personal-finance columnist Charlotte Cowles asks the nosy, revealing, sometimes uncomfortable questions about money so you don’t have to.
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I’m 32 and was diagnosed with ADHD about a year ago. Now that I’m being treated, it’s wild to me that no one caught it sooner, but here we are.
A lot of things in my life have improved since I started medication. I have a new job (I hopped around a lot in my 20s, but now I’ve found a good role for myself at a medical start-up) and a great partner (who encouraged me to get evaluated for ADHD in the first place). But one thing that I still struggle with a lot is financial planning. I am trying to tackle my credit-card debt, which is about $5,000 — luckily, my credit was never good enough to qualify for a card with a higher limit — and pay my student loans. But every time I look at my accounts, I get completely overwhelmed. I know I spend too much, and I don’t have any savings. I feel like a complete and hopeless mess. My partner and I are planning to move in together, and we’re talking about eventually getting married, but he has told me — nicely! — that he’s worried about my financial habits and is encouraging me to get help. I don’t want to drag him into this or even know how bad it is. But any financial advice I read feels like it doesn’t apply to me at all. I’ve always thought I was worse with money than everyone else, but now I’m wondering if my ADHD has something to do with it. What do I do? How can I clean this up?
First of all, congratulations on getting the care and medication you need — I’m so glad it’s helping! But don’t be discouraged that it hasn’t solved everything, especially your finances. “Certain things tend to be a lot harder for people with ADHD, and research shows that money is one of them,” says Dr. Christine Hargrove, a financial therapist who developed a specialty in ADHD after she was diagnosed with it herself a few years ago. “When my clients are medicated correctly and consistently, I often see that their financial behaviors improve, but they still have a lot of problems.”
For instance, many of her ADHD clients might still shop impulsively at night, once their meds have worn off; they also tend to delay bill payment more than neurotypical people, leading to late payments, lower credit, and more general financial distress. “There’s a lot of shame, frustration, embarrassment around money, and a sense of ‘There’s nothing that can help me,’” she says. “It’s like shopping for clothes but finding nothing in their size — the perception is that the financial advice that’s out there won’t work for them.”
And that’s partially true. Standard financial guidance that most people try to follow — stick to a budget, pay your bills on time, save, invest for the future — requires a level of confidence in your ability to follow through. And for a lot of people with ADHD, that critical piece of self-assurance is missing. “My clients will say, ‘I know the advice, but either I can’t seem to apply it to myself, or it doesn’t come together in my mind when I try to do it,’” says Hargrove.
Plus, it’s hard to break old habits, ADHD or not. “Medication can help with today, but it can’t change your history,” says Jodie Stauffer, a certified financial planner who specializes in people with ADHD (and, like Hargrove, was diagnosed with it in adulthood). “You can’t just flip a switch and say, ‘I don’t do that anymore.’”
The good news: You’re not a lost cause. There’s a growing field of research around ADHD and financial behavior, as well as advice for what does work. Here’s what the experts recommend.
When David Dewitt, a certified financial planner, decided to focus his practice on people with ADHD (like himself), he realized that most of his clients didn’t even know where their money was going. “Usually, when I look at statements for someone with ADHD, I see a monumental amount of convenience purchases. So a lot of Uber Eats and DoorDash. And a lot of miscellaneous fees and late fees,” Dewitt says. “There are often multiple accounts, multiple credit cards, money sprinkled around in different places. It’s chaotic. It paints a picture of someone who’s trying their best to survive, get to work on time, and function, but they’re likely feeling overwhelmed, so they don’t plan ahead. They’re just in reactive mode.”
The first step in dealing with this is to get a clear picture of your cash flow. “For some people, this is the hardest part — putting all your accounts into one accounting platform, and getting it cleaned up and organized,” says Dewitt. “Once you’re able to see it all, it becomes less scary.” The dread of a nebulous financial disaster is almost always worse than confronting the actual numbers.
Both Dewitt and Hargrove recommend using the finance platform Monarch, which is more visually oriented than other money apps. “They don’t pay me to endorse them, but I use them for all my ADHD clients,” says Hargrove. “They have a lot of pretty graphs that make it easier and more intuitive to track your money.”
It might be tempting to launch into a big financial makeover. Resist the urge! “A lot of my ADHD clients will get hyperfocused on using a new tool or system for their money, and want to dive in, but then they get frustrated and lose interest when they can’t sustain that commitment,” says Stauffer. Instead of committing to an overhaul, she suggests working on one realistic category at a time. “For instance, start with one area of your spending that you want to control better,” she says. Maybe it’s meal planning and ordering less takeout; perhaps you do a lot of late-night Amazon browsing and want to stop. Whatever it is, give it a tight definition (only ordering takeout once a week and meal planning; no shopping after 8 p.m.) and track your progress. You can add more categories in time, but take it slow.
“I give my clients a five-minute financial routine that they do at a certain time every day, like brushing their teeth,” says Dewitt. “It’s very simple: Review all your transactions from the past 24 hours and categorize them if you need to. It builds awareness of where your money is going and reduces overwhelm.”
Hargrove agrees that this is key. “Especially in the beginning, when it doesn’t feel good to look at your finances, get in and out,” she says. “Do it often, but make it quick — set a timer for five minutes.” It’s okay to hate it, too. “A lot of people with ADHD get frustrated by neurotypical people telling them that money management isn’t that hard,” she adds. Instead, it’s better to accept that it sucks. “It might always be uncomfortable, and that’s all right. You’re building up a tolerance for it.”
You don’t necessarily have to pay a financial planner to get you on track — for starters, just invite a friend over to keep you accountable. This strategy is also known as “body doubling,” and it’s particularly helpful for people with ADHD who need help tackling — and more importantly, completing — a project. “If somebody needs to clean their house and they have ADHD, it’s overwhelming. But if a friend comes and either helps them get going, or just sits with them and has a glass of wine and chats, it’s less daunting,” says Stauffer. “You need somebody you trust who understands that they’re not there to nag you or to tell you how to do it. They’re just there to hang out with you until you finish and provide extrinsic motivation.”
It’s unclear why this works so well, but psychologists believe the “double” provides a focal point that keeps the person with ADHD on task. “If you need to do something you’re dreading, like pay overdue bills, look into a charge you don’t recognize, or make a phone call to the bank, having another person in the room — even if they’re just looking at their own computer — gives you support,” says Stauffer.
You can also ask for more hands-on help with stuff you really struggle with. “My husband opens all our mail, because I just won’t do it,” says Stauffer. “For some of my clients, I’ll just insist that we do certain things together, because I know the chances of them doing it after our meeting are so slim.” This is not giving up; it’s a creative workaround!
In a 2021 study, researchers posed hypothetical financial questions to a group of subjects to assess whether those with ADHD made different choices from those who did not. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the subjects with ADHD demonstrated poorer financial judgment than their neurotypical counterparts when asked what they would do in certain scenarios. But the research also revealed something interesting: The judgment gap between those with ADHD and those without it disappeared when they were asked what they would recommend to other people in the same scenario. “It showed that the ADHDers did know what to do — they just had trouble applying it to themselves,” says Hargrove. “A great way to harness this when you’re making decisions is to ask yourself, ‘What would you advise somebody else?’ It helps you think a little more objectively and take the problem a little less personally.”
“Setting screen-time limits and blockers on your phone and computer can be really effective if you struggle with unplanned purchases, but I find that they need to be on the strictest setting, or else I will just go and turn them off,” says Dewitt. “I use the Cold Turkey blocker during certain hours every day when I really need to focus.” Brick can help, too.
He also recommends setting up automatic transfers to an account that you can’t see or easily access. Yes, this runs counter to the idea of having all your money in one place, but for savings that you don’t want to touch, that’s a good thing. “I personally love Acorns,” he says, referring to the platform that rounds up all your purchases to the nearest dollar amount and invests the difference. “I recommend it to my clients because it helps them save and invest a little bit of money every day without having to think or make decisions about it.” (Oportun, another financial platform, has a similar “set and save” function that pulls small amounts from your account when you won’t miss them.) Better yet, don’t even look at what you’ve saved — if you forget it’s there, you’re less likely to plunder it impulsively. “I’m in favor of hiding your money from yourself,” he says.
“I hear a lot of, ‘I tried to do what people told me, but it didn’t work, so I must be broken,’” says Stauffer. “It’s important for people, especially those with ADHD, to know that they can fall off the wagon and stop tracking their spending for a month or two, but it won’t ruin everything they’ve done.” What really wrecks progress is allowing your situation to define your identity. “Sometimes people will say, ‘I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter. This is just the way I am and there’s nothing I can do to change it,’” she says. “That’ll really keep you stuck.”
Instead of obsessing over your failures, think about what you want out of your efforts, says Hargrove. Do you want your partner to be able to trust you to make sound financial decisions (or at least pay your half of the rent on time when you move in together)? Do you want to get out of debt? Do you want to know that you can stick to a spending limit every month? That’s great — write those things down and make them concrete. “Just focusing on those things will keep you grounded in reality, which can go a long way in combating anxiety, and that in itself is a step forward,” says Hargrove.
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