Financial Strategies for ADHDers

As the topic of finances in relation to ADHD is rarely covered in Singapore, Unlocking ADHD’s webinar, “Financial Strategies for ADHDers” addressed this pain-point affecting the ADHD community from the different perspectives of our invited panelists:

• Ong Mian Li, PhD, founder and principal psychologist at Lightfull Psychology; 
• Gail Wong, a trauma and money professional and certified financial wellness coach at Live True;
• Mohammed Firdaus, a programme executive at Credit Counselling Singapore.  

Dr. Ong introduced the concept of the “Four Minds of ADHD,” to help us understand these challenges. 

• Mind’s Eye: ADHDers have the tendency to be hyper-focused on the present, making it difficult to plan for the future. If you can’t see it, you can’t plan for it. 

• Mind’s Voice: Our inner voice can undermine our financial confidence, leading to impulsive spending and difficulty in sticking to a budget. 

• Mind’s Playground:  Weaker executive function (EF) skills can make it challenging to stay organised and follow through on financial decisions. EF refers to the cognitive processes that help us manage tasks, organise thoughts and get things done. Challenges with EF can lead to problems with planning, impulse control, and maintaining focus. 

• Mind’s Heart: The emotional aspect of ADHD that affects our behaviour can result in poor financial decisions. Challenges in managing finances can cause stress and anxiety. 

Strategies for Managing the Four Minds of ADHD

• Mind’s Eye: Create a vision board or use sticky notes to visualise your financial goals. This not only serves as a reminder but also makes your goals feel more attainable. 

• Mind’s Voice: Develop a habit of self-encouragement. Although it may be difficult at first, developing a positive outlook on your finances can lead to more hopeful and disciplined financial behaviour. Set up alarms for bill payments and budgeting reminders. 

• Mind’s Playground: Tools that can help include budgeting apps, automatic payments to avoid missing bill payments, and calendar alerts to help manage and organise your finances.

• Mind’s Heart: Build a trusted support system of family and friends for financial accountability and encouragement. Consider establishing a reward system for achieving financial milestones to help manage emotional responses.

Dealing with financial trauma 

Financial trauma can be another reason why people (including ADHDers) find it difficult to manage their finances. Gail mentioned three types of situations that can lead to financial trauma. 

1.  A single incident such as being unemployed or getting scammed. 
2.  An ongoing situation like domestic financial abuse or poverty. 
3. Inheriting financial trauma when beliefs or narratives about finances are learnt from parents that leads to negative associations with financial matters.

Five common responses to financial trauma (5 F’s) 

• Freeze: We dissociate with the situation and find it difficult to take decisive action.

• Fight:  We respond angrily and try to control the situation. 

• Flight: We try to escape the negative financial situation by trying to work harder to make more money to address the anxieties over finances. 

• Fawn: We attach ourselves to those who make us feel financially secure and safe. 

• Flop: We shut down and give up.

Now that we understand our responses to financial trauma, how can we manage these responses? 

Linking back to the strategies mentioned by Dr. Ong, automizing payments, setting reminders and speaking with trusted friends can really help you manage your finances. 

• Knowing Yourself: Assess your finances: income, savings, spending etc.. can give you a good idea of what areas need focusing on. 
• Growth Mindset: Do not compare yourself to others or spend time worrying about what has already happened. Instead focus on what you can do and be willing to learn to help improve your finances for the future. This is a lifelong journey that takes time and effort.
• Adopt these strategies: Linking back to the strategies mentioned by Dr. Ong, automising payments, setting reminders and speaking with trusted friends can really help you manage your finances.

Tips and tricks to help with managing finances

To wrap-up, Firdaus gave some great tips to help manage our financial situation. 

1. Stop Using Credit Cards: Most people have 3-4 credit cards on average. Having ADHD and multiple credit cards can easily lead to accumulating debt when you forget to pay bills and struggle organising your finances. By not having credit cards you are more-likely to rethink spending choices and prevent yourself from adding to existing debt.

2. Focus On The Smallest Debt Amount First: It may seem difficult and daunting to tackle debt but starting with paying off the smallest amount gives you a sense of achievement and encouragement to keep going. This is similar to Dr. Ong’s way of managing the Mind’s Heart.

3. Mobile Budgeting Tools: Apps such as Seedly can help to keep check of your financial situation and make it easier to meet financial goals.

4. Automated Payments: Using GIRO automation is a great way to stay on top of paying bills and prevents you from missing payments and accumulating debt.

5. Unsubscribe From Online Shopping Adverts/Lists: To help reduce the urge of impulsive spending, unsubscribe from shopping lists that share reminders for upcoming sales and discounts. When you do not see such advertisements you are less likely to feel tempted to spend money.

6. Do Not Save Your Card Details On Online Shopping Sites: Not saving your card details makes online shopping more cumbersome, as you cannot simply press ‘buy’ and have your payment information automatically filled in. Having to manually enter your card details each time you make a purchase can be a deterrent, potentially helping you cut back on unnecessary spending.

7. Credit-counselling Services: Credit Counselling Singapore provides services to help you manage your financial situation and provide the support you may need. 

In conclusion – it is important to remember that the financial challenges we face are not unique – others are also having similar issues. Understanding the underlying nature of how the ADHD wiring affects our financial decisions, and having a framework to analyze our actions is the first step to managing our finances better. Remember that there is always help available – reach out if you need further support.