From Bulk Buying To Financial Fasting, How Are You Going To Win Back Control Of Your Cash?

It's not a commonly known symptom, but ADHD can pose a significant challenge when it comes to managing finances. The impulsivity, distractibility and disorganization that are common characteristics of ADHD can make it difficult for people with ADHD to stick to a budget or stay on top of bills and expenses. However, there are strategies that can help you find your way to get over these financial challenges, get out of debt, and save for the future. 

 Firstly, budgeting is an essential step in managing ADHD finances. Creating a budget involves identifying income sources and categorizing expenses such as housing costs, transportation, food, entertainment and others. Breaking down expenses into categories helps ADHDers to focus on specific areas of spending and identify where they need to cut back. Keeping records of your spending on a personal finance app will help you by tracking where you’re spending your money, reminding you when bills are due, and letting you know when funds are getting low. 

Secondly, maintaining a routine is important for managing ADHD finances. It takes discipline and admin, but keeping up a smart financial plan is going to save you money, and save you from worrying about money too.  

Making Money Go Further And Work Harder

We can’t avoid the fact that we have to buy food, pay rent or a mortgage, and petrol/travel expenses. Those are the things which usually cost most of the monthly budget, and we have very little control over them. So what it’s really down to is pinching every pound after those costs have been paid to make every penny work harder than it ever did before. 

With food inflation being a major concern right now, cutting back on spending and getting the most out of your money when doing the weekly shop is key to a healthy budgeting programme. Surveys are always telling us that the difference between store’s own brand goods and name brands is negligible, and people actually prefer supermarket own brand goods. in fact some off brand foods are found by taste testers to be just as good or better than their more expensive counterparts. 

Buying in bulk means savings, but it’s also a major outlay to buy a large amount of food in one go. Talk to your family, friends, and neighbours to see if they’d be interested in starting a buyer's club. Putting staples such as pasta, rice, frozen foods and non-perishables on the list of things to buy in bulk and then dividing up the food and cost means that you do get to see those savings straight away, and you’ll earn other benefits too if you’re using reward and loyalty cards too.  

Pay What You Have To Straight Away

Whether you’re on a salary, paid by invoice or even on Universal Credit it’s most likely that you get paid monthly. A handy hint is to pay the rent or mortgage as soon as you get paid (because for any one of us keeping a roof over our head is the most important thing of all) and then put all the rest into your savings account.  

If you don’t have a savings account talk to your bank. ISAs (Individual Savings Accounts) can be opened in the bank or online without a set-up fee and they offer a tax incentivised way to save. There’s a limit to how much you can put in each year, and you can only have one at a time but for our purposes they’re exactly what we want.  

You won’t get a debit card with your ISA so you can’t spend it without transferring funds from it back into your current account. And that’s the point. You’re now in far more control of your money because you aren’t able to spend so impulsively anymore. So giving yourself a weekly allowance means you can monitor exactly what you’re spending and when, it prevents you from making expensive impulse purchases and all the admin of seeing how much money you have, transferring what you need each week teaches you budgeting and how to be very disciplined with your savings.  

Living Life On The 50/30/20

Once you have a handle on saving, think about the 50/30/20 budgeting plan. See if it’s possible to spend 50% of your income on the unavoidable costs of living, 30% on enjoying life, including eating out, entertainment, or whatever else you love, and 20% saved for your future. It’s not a hard and fast rule, and you can adjust it when an unexpected expense turns up, but for the most part it’s a handy guide to abide by.  

The fact that we can now spend a huge amount of money without even leaving the house is causing many problems for people are prone to impulse purchasing.  

Stopping Social Media Spending

When we see an ad for something with promises it can change our lives it’s too easy to go online and buy it without thinking properly. Seeing advertising on social media is worse because there is no barrier between the advert and the payment method. It doesn’t allow you time to think, and so you waste money.  

Advertisers hate them, YouTube is talking about banning them, Facebook doesn’t allow them but people who use them love adblockers! They don’t just stop you from even seeing advertising, they greatly improve your online experience because so much visual clutter is removed from websites and you can watch things on video platforms without being forced to watch an ad before you begin, and another crashing into your video after a few minutes. If you read this article from Tom’s Guide you’ll find that even the FBI recommend using ad blockers as they also prevent malware, viruses and other sneaky software from invading your computer.  

If you’re a big fan of social media, try turning off ad targeting. You’ll still see all the ads, but because they’re not targeted they will mostly be irrelevant to you, making them far easier to ignore, and much less likely to waste your money on. 

Become A Hobby Specialist

Now that you’re making yourself budget better it’s a good idea to identify where you’re overspending or wasting most money. If you have hobbies or an interest such as collecting then this is going to be the first place you look to cut down on extraneous spending, as harsh as that sounds.  

Of course you should have hobbies and things which you enjoy, but could there be a way to cut down on the amount of money you invest in them? If you find you’re buying books, figures, dolls, ornaments or antiques just for the sake of owning them or being a completist, but you never look at or enjoy your purchases try to cut back. You don’t have to give up on your pastime, just maybe consider becoming a specialist instead of a generalist.  

Taking Care Of The Cards

If you have credit card debt there are a few pieces of advice that everyone will give you. First of all put all of your outstanding debts onto one low interest card. Don’t worry if the credit limit is low, we’re trying to save money and pay the debt off, not add to it! Shop around to find the best deal and keep looking for other deals which may appear later on. If a new card has an introductory offer look at what you’d be tied into once the honeymoon is over, and see how easy it would be to get out of your agreement.  

Try to ensure that you pay the balance each month to avoid interest. Avoid only paying the minimum, as tempting as that is, because you will accrue interest and other fees. If you can’t afford to pay in full pay as much as you can, and talk to the credit card provider about more affordable ways to pay. You’ll often find them quite agreeable to negotiations as they make their money from the interest you pay, but hardly make anything if they have to resort to debt collectors.  

Could You Waive Weekly Overspend?

Finally, could you stand to do a financial fast? Could you meet the challenge of not spending any money that you don’t actually have to for an entire week? No treats, no shop-bought lunch, no drinks after work or on Saturday night? It’s a big challenge, but breaking the spending habit for a week could be good for you since you won’t just be saving money, you’ll be cutting down on junk food and booze as well. It won’t be fun, but if you’re giving yourself a weekly allowance and you don’t spend any of it you’ll see how much you’re wasting and where that money’s going.  

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