Navigating ADHD and Building Financial Confidence: A Neurodiverse Perspective on Spending Habits

In the last year, I've embraced my neurodiversity. I'd always had my suspicions that I had autism, but I didn't really think about ADHD. Then, I read the list of symptoms, and it made a lot of sense. Since then, I've been thinking a lot about how ADHD affects spending habits.

For me, I'm relatively focused on building my wealth, I've developed good habits without thinking about it very much. I'm not bragging; I'm just letting you know that it's possible to put some measures in place to combat whatever struggles you have. While ADHD symptoms might cause some behaviours, no one is the same, so anyone with ADHD might have different struggles or be great at managing their finances.

So, let's start with why you might have different struggles than neurotypicals. I'll cover three topics: impulse spending, consistency and procrastination.

People with ADHD, tend to have lower levels of dopamine, so they often seek it where they can. The reward system in our brains is difficult to combat. This is why it feels so good at first to make impulsive purchases and why it's so hard to stop.

Spending money is getting easier and easier with technological advances. Spending mindfully is important. To keep a record of what you buy you can:

• Check your transactions or write down everything you spend.

• Go through your bank statements over the last month and categorise your payments. You can split them into sections like cinema trips or food at home. Personally, this works better for me because I struggle with day-to-day consistency. Some banks have the facility to do this, but going through the process will make you much more mindful of your spending. It was really uncomfortable at first because I felt like I was wasting my money. I think I was still feeling the discomfort just making an effort to ignore it. It's easy to stick your head in the sand, but taking the time to understand yourself will pay dividends (see what I did there 😉).

Shopping around doesn't just save money; it can help build confidence in your buying decisions. I used to do a higher number of transactions, which gave me a small buzz each time. I've learned to take time over deciding what to buy. Now I enjoy buying a few things that I love. I spend time looking for sales, I give myself a budget for an item which will be a challenge. I take time to look at the item and the retailer to check whether it is made sustainably. Last month, I spent ages looking at a new pair of trainers. I had my budget, which was a challenge, and I knew that it would require multiple occasions of research. I found them on the retailer's website brand new; I loved some that were similar, but they were far too expensive. I spent weeks checking Vinted and finally found a new pair for the price I wanted. Every time I think about how much I saved, I feel joy, which helps me avoid going back to buy something else.

Standing orders can send money in set regular amounts, and direct debits allow other people to take the funds they need from your account. Here are my favourite tips:

• You can have multiple current accounts. Having one account for bills means that you don't have to worry about when your payments go out at different times of the month.

• Have another account for food or travel if you need to spend throughout the month. That way, if you have a weekend away at the start of the month, you won't run out of money.

• Give yourself an allowance monthly or weekly.

• Treat savings like a bill when you're paid.

• Buy the priority things first.

• Avoid missing payments by setting everything to be as automated as possible.

My work as a financial planner means that I speak to a variety of people about their in-depth financial situations. People often speak about paralysis. Paralysis happens when we get overwhelmed by the environment, the task ahead, or the amount of information given. When it comes to finances, the most typical way paralysis happens is by being overwhelmed by your feelings or because there's too much information out there. The school system let most of us down; I don't know anyone who was taught how to buy a house or how a credit card works. That means that we have to start from scratch. When you search a topic, there's too much information out there, which can cause overwhelm. Here are a few ideas on how to get around that:

• Start with the information on government-run services like gov.uk, MoneyHelper, and Pension Wise. Or charities like StepChange help with debts.

• Companies might be trying to sell you something, but just like me writing this article, they will spend a lot of money on giving away information in the hope that if and when you need something that you'd pay for, you would approach them.

• You can search for a topic and limit yourself to three different sites to read their information, then stop. Or give yourself a set amount of time to research. You can always do the same again another time, but it saves you feeling like you need to know absolutely everything about a topic.

Services like Money Helper or Pension Wise can't give you advice, but they can answer basic questions. Approaching a financial adviser can be daunting. If I had a pound for every client who says that they'd been putting off getting help, I'd be very wealthy. A good financial adviser will ask you about yourself and tell you what you can do better and how they can help. You don't need to know things in advance; they should be able to point you to glossaries or explain anything you haven't heard of before. If you want help with anything financial planning-related, I'm very happy to have a chat. Sometimes people just want to feel more in control rather than having a really specific topic to talk about.

Here are my contact details, get in touch however is easiest for you.

P.S. Just to let you in on an insight into my experience of ADHD... I was so excited to write this article I wrote bits of each paragraph in chronological order. I tasted the irony as I was writing about attention span. I keep myself very controlled when I'm working with my clients or doing background work, but I don't have the energy for that kind of discipline all of the time, so I let it out when I'm marketing.

True Self Wealth Ltd is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James's Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the group's wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the group's website http://www.sjp.co.uk/products. The 'St. James's Place Partnership' and the titles 'Partner' and 'Partner Practice' are marketing terms used to describe St. James's Place representatives.