#131 How to Make Money ADHD-Friendly (No Boring Budgets Required)

Summary

Navigating Adult ADHD – Episode #131: How to Make Money ADHD-Friendly (No Boring Budgets Required)

Podcast: Navigating Adult ADHD
Host: Xena Jones
Date: September 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Xena Jones focuses on making money management accessible and enjoyable for adults with ADHD—without relying on conventional (and often boring) budget spreadsheets. She shares four evidence-backed and ADHD-friendly strategies to manage finances, designed to work with the ADHD brain’s need for novelty, dopamine, and simplicity. Xena emphasizes practical, no-shame tools to help listeners feel empowered, reduce impulsive spending, and cultivate a healthier, more conscious relationship with money.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Money is Extra Hard for ADHD Brains [03:00]

• Recap of the previous episode’s exploration of ADHD-specific money challenges: impulse spending, dopamine-driven purchases, and shame.
• “It’s not about willpower. Our ADHD brains are wired for novelty and stimulation, all right?” – Xena [03:40]
• Understanding the brain-based roots of money struggles helps reduce shame and enables more compassionate self-understanding.

Notable Quote:

“If money feels messy, if it’s something that you have a difficult relationship with… you are not alone.” – Xena [03:13]

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2. Four ADHD-Friendly Strategies for Managing Money

2.1. Make Money Visible [05:54]

• ADHDers often deal with “money blindness” (like time blindness): out of sight, out of mind.
• Practical Steps:
  • “Buckets” Method: Open multiple designated accounts for each type of expense—rent, utilities, car, health, cats, travel, dopamine fund, savings, etc.
  • Personalize accounts with names and visuals (cartoon icons, photos) for added novelty and fun.
  • Consider using cash for variable expenses—leave cards at home and take out only what you plan to spend.
• Reverse Trick: If you want to spend less, make your money less visible by storing cards away and using cash instead.
• Memorable Example:

  “When you know what your money’s going to… it makes it a little easier to see where our money is going and what is available in each of these accounts.” – Xena [07:41]

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2.2. Self Binding — Making Overspending Harder [10:42]

• “Self binding is where we create barriers between ourselves and our, air quotes, drug of choice.” – Xena [10:43]
• Self Binding Tactics:
  • Unfollow shopping temptation accounts on social media to reduce FOMO-driven urges.
  • Lock credit/debit cards away or leave them at home.
  • Put savings in accounts at a different bank (with no attached card or app) for “out of sight, out of mind” protection.
  • Use a lockbox or safe to make accessing credit/cash more inconvenient.
  • Screenshot or “save for later” items instead of making instant purchases; ask stores to hold items overnight.
• This approach exploits the ADHD brain’s preference for ease: if spending requires extra steps, it’s less likely to happen.

Notable Quote:

“Our ADHD brains don’t like shit that’s hard, right? Our ADHD brains like simple and easy things.” – Xena [11:15]

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2.3. Make Money More Enjoyable to Look At [15:19]

• Fight financial avoidance and shame by making finances playful, colorful, and nonjudgmental.
• Methods:
  • Allow for “dopamine/fun money” in your plan—guilt-free, planned impulse spending.
  • Personalize and brighten your financial tracking tools. Avoid boring spreadsheets.
  • Try financial apps like PocketSmith, especially designed with neurodivergent needs in mind.
  • Split business and personal finances across different banks for clarity and novelty.
  • Schedule regular “money dates” with a trusted, nonjudgmental friend, coach, or partner to decrease avoidance and add accountability/body doubling.
    • Use these sessions to look over recent bank statements, categorize expenses, spot unnecessary outflows, and celebrate positive steps.
  • Do a three-month bank statement review twice yearly.

Notable Moment:

“Plan for the impulse spending, plan for the dopamine spending. Don’t expect yourself just to go all or nothing here… Maybe we want to reduce it. Sure. But don’t take it away completely.” – Xena [19:15]

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2.4. Halted 24 — The Pause & Reflect Strategy [25:26]

• Adapted from AA’s “HALT” model, designed for impulsive spending moments.
• H.A.L.T.E.D. 24:
  • Hungry
  • Angry
  • Lonely
  • Tired
  • Emotional (including hormonal)
  • Dopamine seeking
  • 24: Can I wait 24 hours before buying?
• Before purchasing, run down the checklist. If affected by any factor, address it first, then reconsider the purchase. Screenshot or save the item for later.
  • Most often, the urge to buy dissipates by the next day.
• Supports ADHDers’ struggle with urgent, emotion-driven purchases.

Notable Quote & Summary:

“Am I hungry? Angry, lonely, tired, emotional, dopamine seeking, and can I wait 24 hours before I buy it?... Nine times out of ten, the next day I’m deleting that screenshot and I’m not buying it. Pretty content with my decision.” – Xena [25:57, 27:06]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “I have a car expenses account, a health and fitness account. I even have a dopamine fund money account… I literally have a cat expenses account. That’s right. So what is it? There’s pictures of cats.” – Xena [07:24–08:24]
• “Our ADHD brains are wired for novelty and stimulation, all right?” – Xena [03:40]
• “Our brains love a challenge, okay? But often there’s this real kind of sense of urgency that we’re feeling.” – Xena [29:20]
• On her son’s ambitious ADHD hyperfocus:

  “He said to me, ‘I’m going to make billions.’ I was like, good answer. How are you going to do that? He’s like, ‘I’m going to be an astronomer at NASA.’” – Xena [16:37]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• ADHD & Money Struggles – The Why: [03:00]
• Recap of Episode 130; Shame & Willpower: [03:00–04:16]
• Introduction to Four-Strategy Framework: [04:17–05:54]
• Strategy #1 (Visible Money / Buckets): [05:54–10:04]
• Strategy #2 (Self Binding): [10:42–15:19]
• Strategy #3 (Make it Fun/Novelty/Accountability): [15:19–25:25]
• Strategy #4 (Halted 24 Pause Tool): [25:26–29:20]
• Recap of All Four Strategies: [29:20–30:03]
• Preview of Next Episode: [30:03–30:40]

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Summary Table: Four ADHD-Friendly Money Strategies

| Strategy | Key Concept | Practical Approaches | Timestamp | |------------------|---------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | 1. Make Money Visible | In sight, in mind | Buckets, visual accounts, use/limit cash | 05:54–10:04 | | 2. Self Binding | Create barriers | Unfollow temptation, lock away cards, other banks | 10:42–15:19 | | 3. Make it Enjoyable | Add fun & novelty | Dopamine/fun budget, colors, accountability, new apps | 15:19–25:25 | | 4. Halted 24 | Pause & reflect | H.A.L.T.E.D. checklist, 24hr rule, screenshot/save | 25:26–29:20 |

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Next Episode Teaser

Xena teases the upcoming part three of the Money series, where she’ll share her own biggest breakthroughs:

“I’m going to share with you the biggest shifts in my own money journey… how I’ve gone from being somebody who really believed that she was terrible with money, to being someone who’s not only good with money, but actually achieving their financial goals.” [30:03]

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Takeaway

This episode is a toolkit for ADHDers who want to escape shame-based and boring approaches to money. Xena’s playful, compassionate, and evidence-based strategies emphasize self-awareness, dopamine, and novelty—making financial health not just possible, but actually more enjoyable for the ADHD brain.

For a downloadable episode cheat sheet: NavigatingAdultADHD.com/cheatsheet

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Host’s Tone: Supportive, relatable, humorous, practical, and anchored in lived ADHD experience.

Transcript

[Xena]

You are listening to the Navigating Adult ADHD Podcast with your ADHD coach and expert, Xena. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Navigating Adult adhd. I want to start out by saying thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for choosing to push play on this podcast. I know there are so many podcasts out there and if you. If you're here today listening to this, I just want to say I appreciate you and thank you so much for being here, my friend. So today we're going to talk about money, money, money, money, and specifically how to make money. Something that we don't want to hide from, something that we're good at, that we enjoy, that we have lots of.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

We're going to talk about how to make it ADHD friendly without any boring budgets. Unless you're a budget person. I don't know about you, but I'm not a spreadsheet person. I'm not a budget person. Like, that's just not my thing.

[Listener/Co-host]

All right?

[Xena]

So you don't have to worry about that. That is definitely not something we're going to talk about today. And before we do, I just wanted to shout out the incredible team at Live For More. So I had the absolute honour and privilege of going in to speak at Live for More on Friday of last week. And the purpose of Live for More is to empower Rangatiti. So our young people, specifically, it is males between the ages of 17 and 25, and it's helping them to find freedom from their troubled pasts, from, you know, the backgrounds that they've. They've had and inspiring them to live positive and fulfilling lives. And it's an amazing organization. Like, yeah, I was just so blown away and humbled to, to be there and to get to speak and share some kai and some, you know, incredible stories and hear about them and their pasts and their futures and all these things. So one of the things that they do is surf therapy and they help with, you know, through surf therapy, through different programs that they have, they help to transform people who have had a really troubled life and upbringing and turn their life around. So, yeah, I just wanted to shout them out and say, you know, if by chance you are listening to this podcast, it was incredible to meet each and every one of you and I'm just so grateful that you invited me along and I got to spend some time with you. So, friends, let's talk about money, money, money. Last episode, episode number 130, we actually looked at why money is extra hard for ADHD brains We talked about things like impulse spending, right? If you just drop $1,000 on a couple of pairs of jeans, right? Impulse spending. We talked about dopamine driven purchases, and we also explored how shame can pile on top of the money struggles. So, my friend, you are not alone. If money feels messy, if it's something that you have a difficult relationship with, okay? And it's not about willpower, right? This has nothing to do with willpower. Our ADHD brains are wired for novelty and stimulation, all right? So if you haven't yet listened to that episode, I highly, highly, highly encourage you to do that. It's the one before this. It's number 130. Because when we understand why we can struggle with money and you know why we are more likely to have financial difficulties, right? I talked about some of the research. When we understand this, it can help to begin removing some of that shame and making more sense of our behaviors, right? And we, when we kind of have that deeper understanding, that's when it becomes easier to slowly.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

Not all or nothing, but slowly start to make a few changes that support our brains and what our brains are doing and why they're doing it.

[Listener/Co-host]

All right?

[Xena]

So in this episode today, I'm going to share with you four strategies for making money more ADHD friendly.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

Now, I promise there's going to be no mention, as I said, of boring spreadsheets or budgets that you have to follow. That's your thing. Awesome. But there's not what we're talking about today. Instead, I'm going to share with you how you can improve your financial situation. Situation, my friend. It's a little early on for that, isn't it? I'm going to share how you can actually improve your financial situation in some simple, easy and fun ways.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

Ways that speak directly to your ADHD brain and the things that it needs.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

Things like dopamine and novelty.

[Listener/Co-host]

All right?

[Xena]

So as I said, this episode is going to be full of practical things that you can do. Now, I don't expect you to remember everything. I'm going to give you so many things under these four umbrellas today. And hi, we have adhd. I don't know about you, but I don't remember the things. Even when I want to remember them. I'm like, oh, my God. So you can get a free download with everything I share today, all of the things you need to know by heading to Navigating adultadhd to. Okay, or just tap the link. Wherever you're listening to this, tap the link to get that free download. All right, we've got you covered. So let's get into it. Let's get into the four ways to make money. ADHD friendly. Number one, make money visible.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

We are insight in mind. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Back in the olden days when everything was cash, we probably would have had quite a different relationship to money because we were always looking at it. But now, when everything is electronic and we very rarely have cash, it can just kind of feel like it's endless. You just keep tapping your card, swiping your card, and, you know, as long as it doesn't say decline, you're good to go.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

So when we can't see it and we don't have this kind of visual representation, it's very easy just to keep, you know, tapping it and worrying about it later because it doesn't feel like a now issue, it feels like a later thing. Again, this is so much like time blindness, right? I call it money blindness. So some of the ways that we can do this, how we can make money more visible is. Well, first of all, actually, this is one of my favorites is breaking it into buckets. And what I mean by that is opening multiple accounts. Like, I've got more than 10 accounts. I don't know, maybe like 15. Probably more than 15. So what I mean by this is having accounts for all of the different expenses you have. For example, having a rent account, having a power account, a phone account. I have a car expenses account, a health and fitness account.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

I even have a dopamine fund money account.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

A savings account, all of these different things. So when you know what your money's going to. And this is something we're also going to talk about, Right. Often we don't even know where it's going and how much it costs us to live each week or month.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

But once we've got a rough idea of that, we can break it into all of these different accounts. Now, with each account, you often get to make it a little more fun, meaning you can rename that account and you can often add visuals. So I have been able to go in and put, like, little images for each of my accounts. And when I log into my online banking, I see the little picture that represents, like, my car expenses. There's a picture of a car, right. Like my travel account. I've got a travel fund and there's like a holiday photo in there. I literally have a cat expenses account. That's right. So what is it? There's pictures of cats.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay.

[Xena]

So again, making it a little more fun, a little more visual, okay. Makes it a little easier to see where our money is going and what is available in each of these accounts.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay.

[Xena]

Again, we're wanting to put it more in sight in mind. Now, other ways to do this include using more cash, right? While that is somewhat inconvenient, because you have to get it out. If you can, like, you know, get out cash when you get your, your groceries, like, hey, can I get $200 cash out or whatever, like, if you can make it simple and easy, that would be great. Something you do every week on payday, what have you. But if we use cash, again, it's insight in mind. And I'm not saying for everything, right? Like you want some things to be automated, for example, like my phone bill is autom. Power is automated, right? All of these sorts of things. Simple, automated, right? But when it comes to incidentals, so things like when I go and buy a bottle of wine midweek, or I decide I'm going to go out to a cafe and, you know, grab a coffee or catch up with a friend, or I'm walking past a store and I'm like, wow, that's a really cute top. I might go try that on, right? Having cash just for those things, when you only have it in cash and I encourage you to leave your cards behind, right? Then it's like, well, I've only got a hundred dollars for the week, so actually, nah, I might not get that top. I might wait or I might come back towards the end of the week if I haven't spent this money.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

Again, it's all about making it more insight in mind.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

So this could also be like fun money. Get your fun money out in cash, like your dopamine spending money. So another way we can do this is to make it less visible.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

So what I mean by that, if you want to be spending less or you know, doing a little less impulse spending, specifically unplanned spending, leave your bank cards, your credit cards at home, literally leave them at home and just take cash. Only take the amount that you would, you know, be happy to spend for that day, you know, that night out, whatever it is.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

Again, we can play with this on the reverse side and make it out of sight, out of mind, make it a little harder. Which leads into strategy number two, which is something called self binding. Self binding is where we create barriers between ourselves and our air quotes drug of choice, right? This is where we make it harder to access the. This is something I first Learned about all this concept I learned about from Anna Lemke in the book Dopamine Nation, which I highly encourage on audio. I love the stories that she has in there. Like it is really good, very relatable. Anyway, she talks about self binding and how it's not a foolproof system, okay. But it's about making it harder to access so that we are less likely to follow through, right? Our brains don't like shit that's hard, right? Our ADHD brains like simple and easy things. Okay, so what this can look like, right? Creating self binding barriers between ourselves and the things we might spend on. For me it has been to unfollow Instagram accounts, okay? Cause in the evening sometimes I like to scroll through Instagram after dinner and as I'm scrolling through I see like, you know, one of my favorite websites has got this beautiful new dress out and you know, pre orders available now and don't miss out, right? And they use all of that like fomo, fear of missing out marketing, right? So if I don't see that, I'm less likely to click on it and buy it. So I have literally unfollowed the Instagram accounts that I had a tendency to go and buy lots of shit from, okay? So that's a really easy way. As I said, not foolproof. You can still search them up and go and look, but you're making it harder because it's not just gonna come up in your vision and then you're like, oh, I should go and have a look, right? Other ways that you can do self binding is to lock your credit cards in a safe or have a loved one do that for you, right? In a lockbox, in a safe, right? Leaving your bank cards at home, your credit cards at home only carrying cash. It's a really great way to do it. Another one is putting savings, right? Or any money that you're wanting to, you know, put aside for something specific, putting it in an account that is harder for you to touch. So for example, if you get open a different bank account with a different bank, right? So if you're with Kiwi bank now and you open an account with Westpac specifically just for say savings, right? Or it could be just for bills, whatever it is, right? But if you open an account with a different bank and you don't have a debit or credit card attached to it, it makes it so much harder for you to access that money, okay? So again, it's about putting these barriers in place, making it harder for you to access, right? I have actually done this when it comes to savings. So I have like a. I have two different banks. I have Kiwi bank. I use one bank specifically for business. I use another bank specifically for personal. Like two totally different banks, okay? And then I have a third one that I use to put savings in. I don't have a card attached to that, right? I literally. It's like you have to wait a whole day for it to do a transfer and it like requires you to log in line and then like do authorization and all this shit. It's just like, ugh, so annoying. But I also don't have the app on my phone for that bank so that I don't see it.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

Again, like, I just forget that I even have money over there with that bank in that account.

[Listener/Co-host]

All right?

[Xena]

Again, like, I'm really speaking to my brain, making it out of sight, out of mind, but also harder for me to access. That sort of self binding.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

Another way to do the self binding is to screenshot the thing that you're wanting to buy and save it for later. If you're in a physical store, you say, hey, can you hold this till tomorrow for me?

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

The amount of times I've done that, hey, can you hold this jacket? I'm going to pop back tomorrow, right? And then just not gone back most of the time. But again, like, this really speaks to that sort of FOMO and that urgency, that real sense of urgency that we can feel when we are impulse buying things, feels kind of urgent and frantic and necessary, right? So if we can do that whole screenshot, it click the little save icon, save that link for later, right? Ask them to hold it. I'm not saying I'm not going to have it. I'm just putting a little bit of a pause in there. I'm just saving it for later.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

Again, self binding is all about creating barriers between ourselves and our drug of choice, which sometimes is spending, my friends, spending money. Number three is make money more enjoyable to look at. Like, make looking at your finances something that isn't scary or full of shame and disgust, right? Make, you know, understanding it and managing it, like, more playful and fun.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

So many times in my life I would create like spreadsheet fucking budgets. Tell myself that I wasn't going to spend more than $100 a week on groceries. And trust me, in today's climate, not possible. But anyway, back then it was grocery, right? Tell myself I'm only going to spend $100 a week on groceries. I'm only going to spend $50 a week on petrol and I'm going to save $200 a week and I'm not going to spend money on this, right? And at that time in my life I had no idea what it cost me to live. I had no idea, you know, how much I was spending on groceries every week and it would have been at least probably double that because I was going to the supermarket most days, right? Like I didn't know that I was buying cat biscuits and I wasn't allowing for like cat biscuits every month for my cat or vet expenses or vehicle expenses. I wasn't allowing for any of that, right? I was always hiding from what it cost me to live. And then setting these ridiculously strict budgets again, approaching it in this very all or nothing way, like incredibly strict, no fun, like really shameful, judgmental kind of approach or like whatever the fuck, I'm just going to spend money and worry about it later. Like whatever, like very all or nothing, right? Again, a lot of money blindness coming up here. So we know that novelty and interest motivate ADHD brains. When something is novel to us, when it's interesting, right? We can become like a walking encyclopedia of something that we are interested in, right? How nine year old is the cutest, right? Like right now, he is so interested in space. They've been studying space, it's school. He has become obsessed. He is a walking encyclopedia of all things space. Said to him last night, I was like, how are you going to make your millions? Because we all think he's going to be rich. He's so smart. Like he's nine years old, he's smarter than everybody in this house, I swear. And I said to him, how are you going to make your millions? And he said to me, I'm going to make billions. I was like, good answer. How are you going to do that? He's like, I'm going to be an astronomer at NASA. I was like, damn. Like oh my God, I love it. Anyway, my point was he is so interested in space right now. Like he will literally ask if he can go on his computer so that he can just research space and learn about it. Like he, he is obsessed, right? But again, when we're interested in something, we can easily become obsessed when something's novel to us, right? Like that will motivate us to do it, to, you know, look at it, whatever it is. So we can use that, we can use that knowledge of how our ADHD brains come, how our ADHD brains work when it comes to money. I love how sometimes My brain, like, skips letters and words because it's already gone on to the next thing. It's like, two steps ahead. So. All right, how can we do this? One of the ways I do this, and I invite you to do this, too, is to plan for the impulse spending, plan for the dopamine spending. Have some fun money, right? Don't expect yourself just to go all or nothing here and never have fun money again. Dopamine spending. Hi. That's not fair. That's not fun. It's probably not very realistic, right? Maybe we want to reduce it. Sure. But don't take it away completely.

[Listener/Co-host]

All right?

[Xena]

So I really invite you to plan for and set aside and allow for some dopamine spending. Or I call it, like, my fun money.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

I always think about monopoly money, right? Fun money, but it's real, okay? This is where we buy the unnecessary things, right? We check out the Temu cart and end up with a bunch of random shit on our doorstep, right? My fun money lately has all gone towards. I tell you what, it's all gone towards. Coloring books. Did you know you can spend $90 on a coloring book? I. Yes, you can. And I don't regret it. It's awesome. It's full of swear words surrounded by epic things to color in. Fantastic.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

So the next thing is making your accounts colorful, right? Renaming them, adding photos and visuals. I talked about this before. Not having boring ass spreadsheets. Making it fun again. Another way to make this kind of novel and interesting is to use different bank accounts I shared with you before. I've got my business with one bank. I have my personal with a different bank. I then have other savings with a completely, you know, different bank. Again, I have three different banks that I bank with.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

And you can use, like, doesn't have to be a bank. Like, there's things like sharesies here in New Zealand. All right? There's lots of different things you can use, but we want to, again, make it, like, a little more fun, a little more interesting, a little more appealing, right? For me, it has made it easier to manage money when my business goes through one bank and my personal goes through a different one. Like, they're totally separate banks. There is no crossover unless I transfer one, you know, from one bank over to the other bank.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

Like, it's just so separate. It makes it way easier to manage and navigate.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

There's also a really cool app, and I have not used this yet, but they did reach out to me to talk about sponsorship, et cetera, and we haven't gone down that route. So I'm not saying that I'm, you know, promoting them, but I did do a bit of research into them and the app is called PocketSmith. And I definitely invite you to check it out because it looks super fun, super ADHD friendly. And they did talk about how, you know, this is very supportive of neurodivergent brains. So I would invite you to have a look. It's called Pocket Smith.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay.

[Xena]

Again, it's just all about making it novel and interesting and fun.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

Taking the shame out of it. Also, another thing that I do and I invite you to do is to make a regular money date with somebody in your life. A safe somebody, right? Meaning somebody who's non judgmental. That could be a friend, it could be a coach, it could be your partner, it could be a financial advisor. But having a regular money date, like if that could be every month, that would be fantastic. Even if it's every couple of months, right? This is about looking at it with somebody who is safe and it doesn't mean that they necessarily have to look at yours. You're just doing it together. You're talking about money goals, about paying off debt, about, you know, what you're wanting to do. It's also about having that accountability, that body doubling things that really support our ADHD brains.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

A deadline, all of these sorts of things.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay.

[Xena]

One thing I do two times per year, sometimes more, but two times per year is I will do like this three month evaluation where I go back over three months of bank statements. And I do this in my personal, and then I do it separately in my business and I look at what have been my personal expenses over these last three months. So I will go back and I will categorize everything. So if I bought coffees, like that might go under, I don't know, like I might just kind of group it into cafes to start with and then I'll kind of break it down. Car expenses, I bought a pair of jeans, clothing, right? And then I go through and see, like what I spend in what categories, which ultimately become the categories that I have for my bank. Like I have, as I said, all these different accounts for all of the different types of expenses that I have. But I go through and have a look at, you know, are these expenses what I think they are? Am I spending more or less than I think? Have there been any unnecessary expenses that I want to be more mindful of or be aware of for the future? Has things, have things gone up?

[Listener/Co-host]

Right.

[Xena]

It just makes me aware. So I actually know what it costs me to live. Like in my business. I found that there were a couple of things I was paying for that I was no longer needing or using, and so I was able to cancel them. But I wouldn't have even noticed that if I hadn't been doing this kind of evaluation every now and again. So again, it's kind of about, you know, having that accountability, right, that regular kind of a money date with a safe person, right? Somebody non judgmental. And it doesn't mean that you necessarily have to show them all of your finances. But it's about doing this together, right, so that you do it and don't hide from it continually, which is something we can do. And I did for years, right? So again, this one here, this third step is all about making it more enjoyable to look at and to manage. Now, if you're already wishing that you were taking notes because I've shared some good shit, then don't worry, I got you covered. Remember, they've got that free download. You can get a free download covering everything that we are going through in this episode today. And you're definitely going to want it for the fourth step, my friend. So you can tap the little link here in the bio or head to navigating adultadhd.com cheatsheet now, the fourth step is my favorite. So number four is what I call halted 24. Halted 24. This is something I have adapted from halt, which I believe originally comes from AA meetings, okay? And I've adapted it to speak directly to my ADHD brain and the impulse spending or dopamine spending that I have a tendency to lean towards. Now, this is not foolproof, okay? That's fine. But I will say it definitely, definitely helps me to hit that pause button and enjoy and really identify the driving factors behind my spending.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

So when I find myself about to check out my TEMU order or my Amazon order, I halt, okay? H A L T. And then I run through my Halted 24. And I'm asking myself, am I hungry? Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I tired? Man, I'll buy some shit when I'm tired, right? Am I emotional?

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

Including hormonal, Because I will buy some shit then too. And lastly, the D in our halted am I dopamine seeking? Am I doing this to try and get a feel good? Am I dopamine seeking the 24, okay, so it's halted 24. The last part is, can I wait 24 hours before I buy this? And I'm Always framing this as a choice and in a positive way. Okay, I can have this tomorrow if I still want it. Now, often this speaks to that real sense of urgency that I will have when it comes to making a purchase. Okay, so I will screenshot whatever is in my cart, right? Or I will take a photo of it. If I'm in a store, if I'm in a fitting room, or if I'm in some shop, I will take a photo of it, right? And nine times out of ten, the next day I'm deleting that screenshot and I'm not buying it. Pretty content with my decision. Okay, so again, this is the Halted 24. It's just helping us to hit pause and identify the driving factors behind that spending, right? And this really does help with our impulsivity and our dopamine, our dopamine seeking when it comes to spending, all right? But also, we are going to make more poor decisions if we're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, emotional, and dopamine seeking. We know that, right? But if we can identify it, if we can just kind of play with this halted, it will help us, right, to kind of hit the pause button and eliminate some of that or, you know, give us time to really think about it, see if it aligns with our goals and what we're wanting to do. So again, halted 24. Am I hungry? Angry, lonely, tired, emotional, dopamine seeking, and can I wait 24 hours before I buy it? Now, if I say yes to any one of these, like, I'm hungry, it's like, okay, let me go get some food, right? And revisit this after I've eaten. Am I angry? Okay, let me regulate my emotions and revisit this after I've done that, right? Let me sleep on it, right? All of that. So, friends, I'm just going to recap our four things that we have gone through. These four strategies, right, for making money more ADHD friendly. Number one, we've got to make it visible. We have to make it more insight in mind. Often when we feel a lot of shame around something, we try to hide from it. That's not working. I know. Ask me how I know. Number two, self binding. It's creating barriers between ourselves and our spending, making it harder to access the thing, right? If we're not wanting to spend money, making it harder for ourselves to access that. Number three is making it more enjoyable to actually look at our money, to want to know how much it costs us to live, how we could make more money, like being more playful and Fun, right? Adding that novelty, interest and support in there. Number four is the halted 24.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

Am I hungry? Angry, lonely, tired, emotional, dopamine seeking. And can I wait 24 hours before I buy this? Like, I like that because it's this little challenge, right? And our brains love a challenge, okay? But often there's this real kind of sense of urgency that we're feeling. So again, my friend, you can grab a download of this episode, hitting, like, tap the link wherever you're listening or head to navigatingadultadhd.com cheatsheet now hear this. In next week's episode, we are going to have a part three on our ADHD Money series. And I'm actually going to share with you the biggest shifts in my own money journey.

[Listener/Co-host]

Right?

[Xena]

I'm talking about the things that have helped me to pay off thousands of dollars in credit card debt to be able to have, you know, lots of decent chunks of money in both my business and personal savings accounts. But also what's allowed me to really enjoy the things I love, like traveling. Right without breaking the bank. We're going to be talking about money mindset, and I'm going to share with you how I've gone from being somebody who really believed that she was terrible with money to being someone who's not only good with money, but actually achieving their financial goals.

[Listener/Co-host]

Okay?

[Xena]

So you're not going to want to miss this episode, my friend. I'm going to spill all of the tea. If you haven't yet hit subscribe, I definitely encourage you to do that now so you don't miss out.

[Listener/Co-host]

All right?

[Xena]

Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you. Huge, huge love. Take care. I'll speak to you soon. Hey, friend, if you want some more help navigating and thriving with ADHD and some help applying everything that you're learning here on the podcast, then head over to our website, navigating adultadhd.com.