388 Money. Let’s Finally Deal With It.

Summary

I Have ADHD Podcast Episode 388 Summary

"Money. Let’s Finally Deal With It."

Host: Kristen Carder
Date: March 24, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this deeply practical and compassionate episode, Kristen Carder guides adults with ADHD through the fraught topic of money management. She lifts the shame and confusion that often surround finances in the ADHD community, providing direct, supportive coaching alongside real-life stories and questions from her Focused coaching program members. The episode aims to help listeners understand why money is uniquely challenging for ADHD brains, offer concrete strategies for making money management more ADHD-friendly, and, above all, foster self-forgiveness and hope.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Money Is So Hard With ADHD

• Money Blindness: Kristen introduces the concept of “money blindness,” a counterpart to “time blindness.” For ADHD individuals, money (like time) can feel abstract and non-tangible, making it easy to ignore or mismanage.
  “Just like ADHDers have time blindness, I believe we also have a version of that with our money – money blindness. It's really hard to conceptualize our money. It's really hard to even feel like it's real.” — Kristen (10:38)

• Symptoms Impacting Money:

  • Poor impulse control
  • Struggle to delay gratification and consider future consequences
  • Low working memory and forgetfulness ("losing track of subscriptions, forgetting bills")
  • Boredom and avoidance regarding repetitive financial tasks
  • High levels of shame and emotional dysregulation when facing money issues

“Numbers on a screen don’t feel real. Also, can we just all acknowledge that future consequences don’t feel real?” — Kristen (17:53)

2. The Emotional Load of Managing Money

• Shame Stories Are Universal: Kristen reads shame-laden self-talk from members, such as “I should be better at this by now,” “Everyone else can do it,” and “I help others with money but can’t manage my own.”

• Community Compassion: The group readily gives each other compassion, but struggle to offer themselves the same.
  “We’re so generous with our compassion for others, and we’re so stingy when it comes to compassion for ourselves… You offered it to Tamara. Would you be willing to give yourself the same forgiveness for maybe some of the shame stories that you’re carrying around?” — Kristen (22:46)

• Letting Go of Shame Is Key:
  “You will not progress consistently, sustainably, until you've cut yourself loose from that ball and chain... Forgiving yourself is what's going to allow you to fix the issues.” — Kristen (23:29)

[Notable Quotes & Moments]

• “If Tamra deserves forgiveness, then I do, too.” — Kristen (24:19)
• “Fix, then forgive, right? We've got it backwards. We gotta forgive, then fix. Or we can do it simultaneously.” — Kristen (24:41)

3. Making Money Tangible: Practical Strategies

(Timestamp: 27:34–44:30)

• Interacting Regularly With Money: Kristen asks listeners to interact with their accounts frequently ("at least once a day"), making their financial situation concrete to reduce fantasy and avoidance.

• Real-Time Exercise:
  She walks the group through opening their bank and credit card statements during the session.
  “Why don’t we take about five minutes… Just pull up our accounts. What's happening in there? What's going on?” — Kristen (27:57)

• Addressing Tech & Accessibility Barriers:
  Listeners like Nicole share obstacles such as lack of phone storage preventing access to their banking app — highlighting how ADHD “one step actually becomes 17 difficult steps.” (31:34)

• Plugging Leaks:
  Members find forgotten subscriptions and missed payments by checking accounts during the call. Kristen stresses the power of small, consistent check-ins to stop “death by a thousand cuts” in expenses. (32:26)

• Body Doubling/Acountability:
  Kristen suggests co-working or “body doubling” (doing tasks together, even virtually) to increase follow-through and regulation.
  “Body doubling is essentially co-working with other people... your brain is more prone to consent when you’re working with someone else.” — Kristen (36:51)

[Memorable Moment]

• Kristen recounts her own “Ynab disaster” — losing three years of budgeting data by impulsively clicking the wrong button — and the frustration, avoidance, and eventual self-forgiveness that followed. (29:34)

4. Spending With Intention & Self-Compassion

• Values-Aligned Spending: Kristen pushes listeners to drop the guilt for needed or meaningful purchases and see money as a tool to support their unique lives.

“I feel so good now when I spend money on the things that make my life better and easier… I’m now at the place where I’m able to say money is a tool and I get to use it in values-aligned ways.” — Kristen (40:08)

• Outsourcing and Support: Spending on cleaning, laundry, and pre-made food — rather than self-recrimination — can be liberating for ADHDers.
• Normalizing the Use of Money for Self-Care: Members share “guilt-free” purchases that make life easier, reinforcing the power of intentional spending.

5. Setting Up Systems & Tools

• Automatic Bill Pay: A major tip — put as many bills as possible on autopay to avoid late fees.

• Accounts Bucketing: Kristen recommends:

  • Separate checking, savings, and emergency fund accounts.
  • Use the “profit first” method (divide money up front for different purposes)
  • Build up to having an emergency fund ($1,000 to start; eventually six months of expenses) (44:08)

• Budgeting Tools for ADHD Brains:
  Community recommendations:

  • You Need a Budget (YNAB)
  • Personal Capital
  • Monarch
  • Quicken Simplifi
  • PocketGuard
  • Excel spreadsheets
  • (Mint, but it shut down recently)

• Rocking the Small Steps:
  “You’re allowed to forgive yourself for past mistakes with your money. You’re allowed to spend your money in values-aligned ways. You’re allowed to make mistakes and still be nice to yourself. And you’re allowed to just remind yourself, I’m figuring this out. I’m learning.” — Kristen (49:35)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

| Segment | Topic | Timestamp | |---|---|---| | Opening & Purpose | Setting the stage, path of least resistance | 03:54–07:22 | | Money Blindness & Emotional Barriers | Why ADHD makes money hard, shame stories | 08:15–19:30 | | Letting Go of Shame | Self-compassion vs. regret | 19:30–25:45 | | Making Money Tangible – Group Exercise | Concrete steps, interacting with accounts, live member challenges | 27:34–36:30 | | Spending Without Guilt | Values-aligned choices, support for outsourcing and self-forgiveness | 40:08–44:35 | | Building Systems | Automatic bill pay, budgeting, emergency funds, ADHD-friendly tools | 44:35–49:19 |

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Notable Quotes

• “Can we point out our own questionable choices without using shame? Right.” — Kristen (13:30)
• “Forgiving yourself is what’s going to allow you to fix the issues.” — Kristen (23:34)
• “Interacting with [money] multiple times a day if possible, at least once a day. Where are we at?” — Kristen (27:37)
• “A small leak will sink a large vessel. Death by a thousand cuts.” — Kristen (32:49)
• “You are allowed to make mistakes and still be nice to yourself... I deserve compassion. I deserve forgiveness.” — Kristen (49:38)

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Original Language and Tone

Kristen is warm, frank, and encouraging throughout the episode. She keeps the tone personal, community-oriented, and nonjudgmental — fostering camaraderie, relatability, and safety around the difficult topic of money.

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Summary Takeaways

• ADHD brains experience "money blindness" and need systems to make money management concrete and regular.
• Emotional regulation is as important as practical skill in managing money; shame is the enemy of progress.
• Regular, small check-ins and body doubling can make the difference in managing finances.
• Spending money in values-aligned ways is not just acceptable but desirable; it’s self-supportive, not wasteful.
• Set up systems — autopay, buckets, and budgeting tools — to work with your brain, not against it.
• Self-forgiveness and community support are essential for moving forward.

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For listeners new to this episode:
Kristen’s approach is a blend of practical coaching, self-compassion, humor, and real-life examples from her ADHD community. You’ll leave with new ways to reframe your relationship with money — and yourself.

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Transcript

[Kristen Carter]

Do you ever feel like you're in trouble in your relationships? Like you've done something wrong? Even when no one's actually said anything? Like you're too much, too emotional, too intense, too inconsistent, and somehow at the exact same time? Not enough. Not reliable enough. Not organized enough, not together enough. If this hits, I need you to know something. You're not alone. You are not alone. You are in good company with me. This pattern is so common for adults with adhd and there's a real reason for it. This is why I'm teaching a free live webinar on Wednesday, April 1 at 12pm Eastern called too Much and Not Enough. Why Adults With ADHD Feel In Trouble in Their Relationships. In this class, I'm going to walk you through why so many of us feel constantly on edge in our relationships. What's actually happening in your brain and body when you assume you've messed something up and the first step toward feeling grounded, secure and connected instead of anxious and bracing that this is not going to be surface level advice. You know, we go deep around here. This is the stuff that actually changes how you show up with the people that you love. So if you've ever found yourself over apologizing people, pleasing, masking or swinging into emotional overwhelm, come to this webinar. You can sign up right now at I have ADHD.com relationships. That's I have ADHD.com/relationships. I would absolutely love to see you there.

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Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it's all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I'm your host, Kristen Carter, and I have adhd. Let's chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I'll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential, and move from point A to point B. Hey, what's up? This is Kristen Carter and you've tuned in to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. Hello.

Hello.

How are you? I'm so glad to be with you here today. We are going to talk about all things money today. And I don't know if you remember, but a couple weeks ago I had like a breakdown on camera and I said that I was just so burnt out and I was talking about taking the path of least resistance. And I shared with you that one of the ways that I plan to

take the path of least resistance is

I'm still going to be publishing the podcast, but I'm going to be using a couple classes from my focused ADHD coaching membership. And I'm just going to use them because one, first of all, they're wonderful. You're going to love them.

And second of all, I do not

have the capacity right now to record new content. And sometimes I think about that and I'm like, you know what? If you really had it all together, if you could work ahead, blah, blah, blah. But I really, uh, when my brain does that, I try to just take those thoughts and say, you know what? Life isn't perfect.

You're just a human.

You don't have to do everything a hundred percent all of the time. And so this is my version of

doing less effort but still giving a valuable result. So what I'm doing today is practicing what I preach. I hope you can appreciate that.

And what I know is that this class that you're going to hear on

money is going to be life changing. Life changing.

It's one of those topics that really

affects the ADHD community in so many ways.

And it can bring up a lot

of feelings for people with adhd. Feelings of shame and avoidance and confusion and impulsivity, regret.

I mean, money is one of those topics that, like, gets us. It gets us.

And ADHD brains really struggle with money

because of things like delayed consequences. We struggle to plan for the future. We have poor impulse control, we struggle with working memory. And the boring, repetitive tasks of financial management is just like, it's not that fun. And that does not even mention how much emotional regulation it takes to consistently

look at your money and deal with the reality of what's there.

And so this episode, I'm telling you, this class is life changing.

I think you are absolutely going to

love it because in this call, we're

going to talk about practical ways to make money management more ADHD friendly, not perfect.

Okay? We're going to take the path of least resistance, but we're still going to do a good job. We're not going to be rigid, but

we are going to be supportive.

So in this episode, you're going to

hear me teach in Focused. You're going to hear questions from members,

discussion, coaching and real life problem solving in real time that I'm doing with the other Focus members. So that brings me to something that I want to mention, which is today's episode is actually a peek behind the curtain into what happens inside of Focused. You know, that Focus is my ADHD

coaching program and it, I love it.

Of course, I'm so biased, right? But one of the most powerful parts of the program is these live calls and the community aspect of it. They're interactive, they're conversational. And even when you're listening to the replay, notice that even when you're listening

to the replay, you still feel a part of a community, which is wonderful

because there's a lot of co regulation

that happens in community.

And what do we need in order to manage our money? We need to be regulated. Because if we're feeling that shame, self judgment, regret, blame, we're never going to

be able to manage our money properly.

So I think you're going to love this episode and I hope it gives you a sense of like, oh my gosh, it's not just me. It's not just me. So as you listen today, imagine yourself in the room with us. You're going to hear other members chiming in. I mean, through the chat.

The chat just like blows up the whole time. And I like to read people's comments

and Questions, because it.

It brings that community feel to it,

and you'll hear people working through their own money challenges. And my hope is that something in

this conversation helps you feel less alone

and more inspired to engage with your money. Because money is a tool. That's all it is. It's a tool. It's just math and it's a tool. And the more that you can manage it properly, whatever that looks like for

you, the more that you can use

it to serve you and your goals and what you want your life to look like.

So please enjoy this class on money.

All right, so today we are here to talk about money. How do you feel about it? We are here to talk about money. How do you feel about it? Hillary says, ruh row. Brianna says, yuck. Catherine says, eek. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. That's why we're talking about it. It's a topic that needs to be discussed, and I probably just don't talk about it enough in this space. So I really want to. I want to do it more because I think that the more money we can keep, the more we can use it to our executive dysfunctions advantage, the more that we can pay for things that make our lives easier, which then allows us to do the things that we want to do in life. So I think it's actually a really important topic for us to consider. So today we're just gonna start off by doing a little self check in. On a scale of 1 to 10, if 10 is like, amazing and perfect and wonderful, and 1 is like awful, horrible, in debt, getting worse, terrible, where do you fall on the money scale? 1 to 10? How you doing? Trish says, oof, I've got all this thousands of dollars in bills. $7,000 of bills built. Not my fault, but I'm really stressed. Laura says, you mean everything I get to spend my money on and get my dopamine hit and then forget to return. Okay, we've got a six, a four, another six, a five, a five, a five, five, seven.

Ish.

Wow, that's great. All right, great. Wait, what was the question? How you doing with Money? Scale of 1 to 10? 10 being awesome, 1 being awful. Shannon says 9. I got myself sorted three years ago, and it's the best decision ever. Wow, that's amazing. Three and a half, two, four, eight and a half five. We're all over the place here, aren't we? Yeah. Michael says, actually, I'm a seven or an eight. I love that things are not dire, but so confusing. Yes, that makes so much sense. Okay. So managing money with adhd, it's not impossible, but it's definitely more difficult for us than it is for a neurotypical person, most likely. Okay. Managing money is a skill set that we can develop. And let's just get started by saying this is not a moral issue. Oftentimes we feel like the people who have more money are just like, quote, unquote, better, and the people who have less money are, quote, unquote, worse. And that is not the truth at all. Everyone is inherently equally worthy. Okay? Some of us have developed a skill set. Some of us haven't. Some of us are further along in our journey. Some of us are just at the beginning. Some of us have the opportunity to make a lot of money. Some of us just don't. Especially if your ADHD has gotten the best of you, if you have lost jobs along the way because of your ADHD symptoms, or if you have chronic pain or a kid who has special needs. Like, your ability to earn might not be out of 10 right now, and that's okay. All right, so we're going to talk about all of it. So, first of all, I like to think about money in the same way that I think about time. And I really want you to, like, like, lean in and really grab this from me. Just like ADHDers have time blindness, I believe we also have a version of that with our money money blindness. It's really hard to conceptualize our money. It's really hard to even feel like it's real. It's just kind of, like, out there. It's in the apps. It's like we're not touching it. We're not feeling it. We're barely handling it anymore. Right. We're mostly just, like, tapping or swiping a card. It's like we have this blindness the same time blindness. We have it in relation to money. And I really want you to. Like, if you. If you're resonating with that, I want you to sit with it for a second. How might money blindness be impacting you and your finances? How might money blindness be impacting you and your finances? I'm blowing Carol's mind. I'm so glad. And. And how can you help yourself to make it more concrete? How can you help yourself to make money feel more real? Now, on the flip side of that, the thing is that a lot of us carry shame around our money. So we don't want it to feel real. We don't want it to feel real. We don't want to think about it more. We don't want to put our accounts in front of us more often because of the guilt or the shame or the frustration that we feel. Anyone. So when I say, hey, we need to make money more concrete, which means we need to interact with it more often, you may feel intense resistance to that. You may be like, absolutely not. I don't want to. It feels terrible. I feel like a failure. It feels awful. And so this is why I believe that in addition to just like building it as a skill set, money management is really an emotional regulation management issue. And like, why does everything have to come back to emotional regulation? I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Like, I'm real sorry about that. But money management has a, a lot to do with your emotional regulation ability. So the more that you develop your emotional regulation skills, the more you're going to be able to develop your emotional, your money management skills. Let me say it again. I'm going to have to really concentrate to not mess it up. The more that you develop your emotional regulation skills, the better you will be able to develop your skills. Because managing money takes the ability to feel some shame, to feel some sense of failure once in a while, to feel discomfort of not saying yes to yourself in the moment when you want to make an impulsive purchase. It's tolerating the discomfort of living in reality. Who here knows that living in reality is uncomfortable? Reality bites. We would rather live in fantasy. We're like, it's no big deal. It's going to work out. It's totally fine. I'll just buy this. It's fine. It's all going to work out. It's all going to work out. It's all going to work out. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. I feel like if all of us could have someone looking at our account saying, hey, I noticed that you ate out every day this week. Is that really how you want to be spending your money? Hey, I notice that you are making a lot of stops at Wawa and I know it doesn't seem like a big deal. Are you sure this is how you want to continue to proceed? Okay. And so having that like internal parenting with kindness and compassion and just check ins, hey, is this how we want to be spending our money is going to be so helpful? The question is, can we make values aligned money decisions? Can we have enough compassion for ourselves to allow us to look at our accounts and make money feel real? Yes. Maggie says, wow, that sounds like a thin Line to walk to not use shame while pointing out the question questionable choices. No wonder why we avoid it. Exactly. Can we point out our own questionable choices without using shame? Right. Wawa is like a gas station convenience store situation. We have a lot of impulsivity. Obviously, we have low working memory, so we forget things like bills or what's in the account or we lose track of our subscriptions. And then, of course, the avoidance and shame. Okay, so there's. There's a lot going on here. Money doesn't feel real to us. And I, I do think that this is something that we really need to. I think that we really need to grab onto this concept that if I don't make my money tangible ins some way, it's not going to feel real and I'm just going to, like, live in a fantasy with it. Are you with me on this? So if I, if I don't have a strategy for making money feel real, then it's likely that I will just live in fantasy and I'll just be like, it's fine. I'm sure it'll be fine. It's not a big deal, blah, blah, blah. I totally get it. This is super hard. And this is the place for you to learn, right? And so, like, what I want to tell you is that if you've never learned, this is the place for you to learn. It's okay for you to talk to yourself like that. Hey, we haven't figured this out yet. We need to. We need to figure this out. We're just learning. It's okay if we make mistakes. I'm just learning. Even if you're 50 or 70, who cares if you haven't developed the skill yet, you're still allowed to, like, parent yourself in this way where you're kind and compassionate and you're like, hey, we're just learning. These are skills that we haven't yet developed. It's totally, totally, totally okay that we're still learning. Okay?

And I mean, once in a while,

I make really dumb money choices, even though in general I'm pretty good at it. And then I'm just like, yeah, because you're human and we're going to make dumb decisions sometimes. Moving on. Right? It's like they're. It's fine numbers on a screen don't feel real. Also, can we just all acknowledge that future consequences don't feel real? So when I'm in a moment of impulsive spending and I'm trying to, like, run through, like, how much money do I have? I'm not really sure. I think it'll be fine. Future consequences just don't seem real. Now, this is kind of across the board in adhd, but it's certainly applicable when it comes to our money. A lot of us have shame stories around money, and I wonder if you relate to this and if so, if you want to share some of your shame stories that might be helpful to the group. And what I mean by that is, like, what are the things that you say to yourself that make you feel shame? For example, you should be better at this by now. Everyone else can do it. Or like, I don't even want to look at it. One of Shannon's shame stories is, I did this to myself. I'm an idiot for not knowing. This should be better. This should be different. It shouldn't be like this.

For me.

It used to be like. It shouldn't be this hard. Why is this so hard? Is this so frustrating? Laura says my shame is from the fact that I help others with their money, but I can't manage my own. Yes. I feel like learning with and playing with cash really can be helpful for making money tangible. Yeah. Yes. Alyssa. Her shame story is I make xx. Like, I make this salary. How is it possible that I can't afford whatever it is? Why am I not able to make money like the rest of my family? Yes. Oh, this is moving fast now. Yes. There's pressure to save money or something bad will happen. Like a potential partner will shame me or I can't buy a house. My shame also drives me to overwork. I believe that. Yeah. I've been in debt most of my life. It just seems normal to me now. Yes. I just did the math on one. I've wasted over $1,300 from a $27 a month on device insurance that was never used. Yep. Yep. This is embarrassing. I'm smart. I have a good job. Why can't I do this? Yes. Everyone around me seems to have this figured out, and I'm just getting more and more behind. Oh, everyone. I feel it. I feel the pain. I feel the shame. I feel it. Can we just take a moment? Yeah, big love. Can we just take a moment to, like, offer ourselves and the group some compassion? Like, this is the moment where we need some compassion. This is a collective experience that everyone in this room, all 50 of us, relate to. All 50 of us. Okay. We all relate to this. Can we offer some self forgiveness? Can we pardon ourselves for our dumb money mistakes? I just read Tamara's. What did she say? I've wasted over $1300 from a $27 a month subscription for insurance on a device. Blah, blah, blah. How many of you would pretty easily forgive Tamara for that? Like Tamara, you. You're good, girl. You're okay. I forgive you for that. Crocker says 100%. No question. Katherine. Absolutely. Been there. Yep. Yep. Okay. And so then Maggie says 100% forgive. Now, would you be willing to offer yourself the same forgiveness? You offered it to Tamara? That was a bait and switch. I did it on purpose. On purpose, you offered it to Tamara. Would you be willing to give yourself the same forgiveness for maybe some of the shame stories that you're carrying around? A lot of you are saying no, and I'm just wondering, could you see the discrepancy there? Can you see how you're willing to offer it to someone else but not to yourself? And can you. Could you do a little inquiry with yourself here? Crocker says, it's wild how fast my brain just flipped.

Yeah.

We're so generous with our compassion for others, and we're so stingy when it comes to compassion for ourselves. Tamara says, you guys, I'm no more worthy than any of us. Come on. Yeah. Part of making progress in this area is cutting ourselves free from the ball and chain of regret that we've been carrying around about our money. Who here is carrying around a ball and chain? A lot of you. Here's the deal with that

you're going to need and.

Well, sometimes I am pretty bossy, but I'm. I'm not always this bossy. But, like, you will not progress consistently, sustainably until you've cut yourself loose from that ball and chain because you're just dragging it around. And it's impacting how you interact with your money. It's impacting every decision that you make. It's impacting your avoidance tendencies, your shame spirals, your frustration. It's impacting everything. Can you say, I'm gonna offer myself compassion. I'm gonna offer myself forgiveness and just make it a mantra until it becomes the truth. I deserve compassion. I deserve forgiveness. You could even tell yourself, if Tamra deserves forgiveness, then I do, too. Yeah. It feels like I can't let go of the stress around money until I have a plan to fix it. Right? So the only way that I can forgive myself is if is like, once I've rectified the situation, I've got to fix it first, then I can forgive myself. You've got it backwards, because forgiving yourself is what's going to allow you to fix the issues. Okay, Letting go of that 2 ton ball and chain that you're carrying around. I mean, how easy is it to fix stuff with that ball and chain connected to you? Not very easy, Right? Fix, then forgive, right? We've got it backwards. We gotta forgive, then fix. Or we can do it simultaneously, right? Because these are skills that we're developing. We can do it simultaneously. So obviously shame is not helping you. And self compassion means living in reality, looking at your numbers, but also not being a jerk to yourself about it. This is where we're at. That's a thought that I really, really love to use. This is where we're at. Like this is reality. Now what? This is where we're at. Now what? This episode is sponsored by AG1. If you're traveling this spring, I've gotta

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[Kristen Carter]

time to answer Heather's questions. She said, what are some strategies for making money feel tangible? And what I will say is interact with it as much as possible. But we won't, we won't interact with it when we're carrying around that ball and shame. Ball and shame. That was a Freudian slip. That worked really well. We're not going to interact with our money when we're carrying around a ball and chain because, like, that feels terrible. Who wants to do that? The way to make it tangible is to interact with it multiple times a day if possible, at least once a day. Where are we at? When I say interact? That can look diff different to different people. It can look like self auditing. It can look like going into your budgeting app. It can look like just pulling up your accounts and saying like, where are we at? Okay, all right, we'll come back to that. So this is actually a great time to do this. Why don't we take about five minutes here together as we co regulate in this space. Just pull up our accounts. What's happening in there? What's going on? Some of you are going to have to go find passwords. Some of you are going to have to like, phone a friend. But can you get into your apps? Can you get into your bank accounts? You take a look at your credit card statements. Let's do that now. Jamie says no. Who else is channeling that? No energy. She says, it's okay. I'm gonna do it. That's amazing. Hillary said I did it. Amazing. Go find, like, go do a scan. We're just doing like, this is. And this is something that you can. This is something that you can do. I would suggest on the Daily, again, we're just making it feel real. We're looking at it and we're integrating it into our lives. So on the Daily, I go into my accounts. I used to go into Ynab. I have a terrible Ynab story. I ruined my whole ynab, the whole thing. I had three years of consistent budgeting, which is the first time in my whole life that I've been consistent with budgeting. Three years and I ruined it. I clicked a button and it gave a prompt like, are you sure you want to do this? And I didn't read it. I was like, yeah, just stop it. I'm trying to do something. And I impulsively clicked it, and I transferred every single purchase into Greg Hockey. Every purchase from the last three years is now in the Greg Hockey folder. No one do. There was an undo button. I didn't realize what I did. I didn't realize what I did. And then I got frustrated. I was like, this is stupid. And I, like, closed out. And then when I came back to it the next day, I was like, what is going on? So it was too late for the undo button. Michael says, this makes me feel good. Is it my story that makes you feel good? Oh. He said, I haven't opened my budget since June, and I'm still on track with what I budgeted, so this makes me feel good. That's great. Okay, so I am going into. I've already decided. This was, like, two months ago, so it's been a couple months of me not budgeting at all or tracking because I'm just. I was so overwhelmed. I was so angry, and I was so just, like, effort. F. Ynab F. Tracking money. F. Money in general. I'm done with all of this, so I needed two months to calm down from that, and now I'm just going to start fresh in January. Fu. Ynab. Kurt said, I just paid off my credit card debt. Oh, my gosh. That's amazing.

Kurt celebration.

Yes.

Okay, this is.

I'm going to read what you just wrote, Nicole, because I think that this is very indicative of, like, the ADHD sob story and, like, legitimate sob story. So here's. Here's what Nicole says. This is part of my problem. My phone has zero space. I have to update my banking app before they allow me to use it, and I don't want to delete. Is that the most ADHD thing ever? So it's like I can't access my banking app because if I. If I am going to do that, I first have to delete a bunch of stuff from my phone, and I don't want to do that, so. Yes, exactly, Jamie. The one step actually becomes 17 difficult steps. Yes. So, Nicole, how can you solve the storage problem? Nicole says, I'm laughing so hard. This is my sob story. And I love that you guys in this community understand. Can you just pay for more storage? Can you get a new phone? It's worth it. Can you get a new phone with more storage? We're just going to call that, like, the cost of having adhd. Can you just do that? Can you hop on a coaching call or a body double and maybe just peruse and see if there's anything you'd be willing to. To delete? Yeah. Can you buy more storage? I feel like you probably could. Six years of data is a lot. I think that you could probably buy a new phone and get more. Okay, Lily, this is amazing. Lily says, I just found subscriptions for which I have no idea what they are. See, this is why we interact with our money. This is why. Amazing. So, Lily, you are the example here. Thank you so much. Because if we're doing these simple check ins, and then those teeny, tiny leaks, those teeny tiny drips of money that are going out to places that you don't even know what they're doing, we can plug those leaks. Because a small link, A small leak will sink a large vessel. Just a tiny, tiny link. Why do I keep saying link? I can't say the word leak. It's very difficult for me. A small leak will sink a large vessel. Death by a thousand cuts. Exactly. Lily says, thank you, Kristen. I have a feeling there are many leaks. Indeed. And those leaks are stoppable. You can plug those. Okay. Okay. Amazing. Blaze said, I just discovered that I didn't pay our family credit card last month. We have enough to cover the statement balance, so I scheduled the payment, but I feel like I'm going to barf. This is an important insight. She feels like she's gonna barf. That is the discomfort that I'm talking about. This is where emotional regulation is so, so crucial. Because if Blaise is not willing to tolerate that feeling of, oh, my gosh, I think I'm gonna barf. Whatever that is. Right? Maybe dread, maybe fear. Maybe. I don't know, Blaze, if you have, like, a name for it, if you're not willing to tolerate that feeling, you're not going to schedule that payment. You'll get to the schedule payment button, and then the feeling of fear, or as you put it, like, I think I'm going to barf, will come up, and instead of clicking the button, you'll just be like, forget it. I can't do it. I'll do it some other time. And then the thing won't get done. Do you see how emotional regulation is so closely connected? When I cancel subscriptions, I feel so excited, like I just won free money. Does it operate the same way as decluttering one's house? Oh, interesting. Like throwing something out. Is that what you mean, Russell? Like the discomfort of getting rid of something Jamie said. I didn't realize it until you said that my feeling around money is nausea. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep. This is so good. You guys are so insightful. I need to cancel at least three memberships which add up monthly and annually. But I keep thinking I will watch some of the content first and I need to just get over it and cancel and move on. Yeah. And Dr. Ali, I wonder if you can. Are you able to rejoin? Like, you can use that on yourself? Like, I can always come back if I want to. Yes. She says she could rejoin, so I would use that for yourself. Like, hey, obviously we're not in a season where we can use this. We'll just come back to it when we can. If I lose sleep over it and I really want it tomorrow, I'll just re sign up. It's no biggie. Nicole, I need 500 megabytes. MB. I think of space for this dumb update. Nicole, I know you can solve that problem. I know you can. So for the next two minutes, we're still looking at our banking apps. We're checking in on what's in our checking account and our savings. We are looking at credit card balances. We're just kind of scanning for anything that we don't recognize or subscriptions that we might be able to cancel. Every once in a while, I like to go into my iPhone and click on subscriptions and see what I'm paying for. That's another great thing you can do. Also, somebody mentioned Rocket Money. I've been trying to get them to be a sponsor of the podcast because I think that they're extremely aligned with an ADHD audience. But Rocket Money is also. It was Crocker great. It is. Ironically, it's a subscription. Right? Ironically. But it finds your subscriptions and manages them for you so that you can kind of keep track and know exactly what you're paying for and when. All right. How does your body feel right now? Just kind of do a check in with yourself. So you've been looking at your accounts, you've been looking at your money. How are you feeling? Are you okay? Notice that, like, you're still breathing. You're still here. Jamie said the hardest part was deciding to look. Yeah. That resistance is strong. Hillary says anxious but hopeful. Yeah, I feel there's a mountains of things to address. It definitely helps to do it while online. Don't forget that we have basically round the clock body doubling. We have a lot of opportunities for you to body double with other focused members. This would be a great thing to do on a body double. And if anyone wants to open a body double or join body double after this call, just like go directly from here to the slack body double channel and just kind of pick up where we left off. That could be really helpful. Kurt says, what is body doubling? Body doubling is essentially co working with other people. So you are not alone. You are co regulating, even over zoom. And it's like your brain is more prone to consent when you're working with someone else rather than I'm alone in my office. I'm the only one struggling with this. I'm the only one doing work. It feels more possible. Okay, what I really want for us is for us to feel good about spending money on what matters most to us. How many of you, and this used to be me, would feel guilty no matter what you spent money on? Buy gas. Oh my Gosh, that was 80 bucks. I feel so guilty. Buy groceries. Oh my gosh, that's 350 bucks. I feel so guilty. You know, go see your gym membership. Oh my goodness, I feel so guilty. Purchase a new shirt that you actually need. Oh my gosh, I feel so guilty. Pay my mortgage. Oh, I feel so guilty. Like, guys, we need to stop. We need to stop. Money is a tool. We are so lucky to have access to it. Spend it on what matters to you. Use it. Use it as a tool. I feel so good now when I spend money on the things that make my life better and easier. Do you know what I just spent money on? $200. I just spent 200 on this. Are you ready? Thanksgiving is going to be very small for us. It's just going to be my family of five and my sister and I was like, I'm not going to cook a turkey and like make all this stuff. So I purchased from one of our like whole food stores pre made Thanksgiving

dinners as a gift to me.

A $200 gift to my ADHD self. Guess what? On Wednesday we'll go, we'll pick them up. They have turkey, gravy, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, all like made within this whole food store. It's called Kimberton Whole Foods. And also they have a gluten free option for my sister and they have pies and gluten free pies. Excuse me. Yes, I feel good about that. Not guilty now. It took me years. It took me years. Okay? But I'm now at the place where I'm able to say money is a tool and I get to use it in values aligned ways. Rihanna loves Kimberton and she lives right around the Corner from the original store. That's amazing. Yes. It's like a local small version of like a Whole Foods probably. I've actually, I don't shop there often, but I trust them and they're gonna make Thanksgiving dinner for me. Crocker says I'm gonna call myself out here. My dogs just barked to let me know that my large aloe package just got here. For those of you who don't know, aloe is like a high end yoga clothing. That's amazing. Okay. My point is, I don't want us to carry around constant guilt and. And the antidote, antidote to guilt is that self compassion. Right. I'm okay. We're good. I get to spend my hard earned money in ways that serve my life, even if I don't have that much of it. As soon as I started making more than our bills, I started paying someone to clean my home. The minute I started making enough money to cover the bills and we had like a, like that much extra, like a minuscule amount, I started paying someone to clean my house. And I felt so good about it. Like, thank God I don't have to do this anymore. My gosh, I feel amazing paying her. Crocker would like us to know that everything was 20% off. No shame. Oh, Hillary says, I actually don't feel guilty about that. So Hillary, try to figure out and all of you here, if there are things that you don't feel guilty about, how did you get yourself there? And how can you help yourself with other values aligned choices? So the Thanksgiving meal thing, values aligned. I want to host Thanksgiving. I'm going to make it cozy and festive and fun. I don't want to spend the whole day in the kitchen with just knowing that like my one sister is coming over. That's just not what I want to do. That's not. That's not what I want to do. Plus, my kids would rather eat pizza and Mac and cheese and chicken fingers. So why am I going to spend the whole day in the kitchen when my kids would rather rather eat something else? Michael said, this session has really uplifted me and made my stress lighter. Oh, my gosh. Tamara says I don't feel guilty paying for focused. I can tell you that because the value is there. Wow, that's amazing. Briana says laundry service, the freedom that I feel makes the guilt melt away. Laundry service is where it's at. If my husband did not do the majority of the laundry, you better believe I'd be paying for that. Also, there is a place in our area that does laundry for 10 bucks a load. I thought it was 5 bucks. I don't know if they increased it since they've gotten busier, but even so, $10, they come to your house, they pick it up, they fold it. Like they launder it, fold it, and then drop it back off. $10 a load. That's like a steal. Yeah, I agree. One of the things that I think is really important is that if we can set, like, hopefully you have everything on automatic bill pay. Can we just do a check in here? Is everything on automatic bill pay? Because it should be. I realized I was paying my mortgage, it wasn't on automatic bill pay. And then Ynab screwed me and I forgot to pay my mortgage. I was late two months in a row, and it cost me $180 both months. And then I realized, oh, shoot, without Ynab, I am not paying my mortgage. So I finally set it up for automatic bill pay. Brianna says no, because then I would have to budget better.

Interesting. Lovey Tamara says, omg.

Maybe I can hire a laundry service to get through Mount Washmore in the basement. Yes. Do it. Do it today. Do it now. Okay. Cecile says, I don't feel guilty paying for things that make my life more enjoyable and easy. Like focused. That's amazing. Crocker said I was so lazy to put auto on auto pay, but then I was forgetful. Yep, yep, yep. Yes. I learned that you can even have your credit cards automatically take the full payment so I don't have to remember. Amazing. I pay bills ahead of time when I can. Oh, yeah. So that I don't blow through the money that's sitting in my account. One of the tricks that I learned was to have a savings account, a spending account, and like a, like a reserve, like a long term emergency fund account. And that's something that was really helpful. It kind of goes off of the profit first method where you're making your plate smaller. So you take your paycheck, you put a percentage into, like, emergency fund, or you at least have an emergency fund. Does everyone have an emergency fund? You don't have to answer, but can you please start with $1,000 and then eventually work your way up to having six months of expenses? Eventually. Eventually. That took us quite a while. I read some really weird statistic that, like, most people don't even have $1,000 on hand, which I think is really scary. So I would really encourage you to have an emergency fund, which is like, money you never access unless, like, the car Randomly breaks down or a weird tax bill comes in, right? Yeah. Dr. Ali says I keep dipping into my emergency fund. Well, then it's not really an emergency fund if you're just kind of using it to like, get through life rather than like for actual emergencies. She says. Lol. True. Then it's not actually an emergency fund. Okay, so having an emergency fund and then like a savings, like if I. If you want to go on vacation or if you're saving for your kids college or like whatever that might be. Actually that should probably go into investments, but I'm not the expert on that. But like, let's say vacation or Christmas. Like if you've put money aside for Christmas, that would be like in savings and then. Then you have your spending in the checking. Okay, let me answer a couple questions and then we're going to be on our way. Do you have any recommendations for budgeting tools or apps that are ADHD friendly? What do you guys like to use? I would have said Ynab, but now I have a difficult relationship with Ynab because I screwed over or I screwed myself over. Some people use Mint. Is that what it's called? Every dollar has a free version. Oh, Mint went away. Thanks, Amanda. I didn't know that. Yep. Yep. What else do you guys use? I like. You need a budget. I don't know that it's ADHD friendly, but it. It works for my brain. The body doubling tends to die out in the early evenings and I'm a night owl. Is there a plan for extending that or allowing more people to start sessions? If you would like to be a body dou, just email the focused [e-mail] and say like, hey, how do I become a body double host? And they will help you with that. I think we're always looking for body double hosts as far as I know. So just email them and say Kristen said. Or you can text. You can text the number that's in your phone where you get focused reminders from. Yeah, totally. Send a text or an email. You can be a host. That's awesome. May I suggest that y' all hop off this and head right to a body double and you can have a little pow wow about what's happening here. If that would be supportive to you, I highly recommend it. Okay, let me read the apps. Chase bank has a budget tracker. Personal capital is still going. I think Monarch is one Microsoft Excel. You could just do it for free in Excel. I use Mint, but now use Quicken Simplify. I like sofi bank. You can subdivide your savings account as many times as you want to allocate money toward different things. That's cool, Brianna. And money can't be pulled from them unless you move it yourself. Wow. I use pocket guard now, but I know that Monarch and copilot are also popular. That's awesome. All right, y', all, that's it for today. I'm so, so happy that we got to do this together today. You're allowed to forgive yourself for past mistakes with your money. You're allowed to spend your money in values aligned ways. You're allowed to make mistakes and still be nice to yourself. And you're allowed to just remind yourself, I'm figuring this out. I'm learning. Okay? All right, go do it. Talk soon. Bye. Hey, ADHD er I see you. I know exactly what it's like to feel lost, confused, frustrated, and like. No one out there really understands the way that your brain works. That's why I created Focused. Focused is my monthly coaching program where I lead you through a step by step process of understanding yourself, feeling better, and creating the life that you know you're meant for. You'll study, be coached, grow, and make amazing changes alongside of other educated professional adults with ADHD from all over the world. Visit ihaveadhd.com focused to learn more.

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