Earlier tonight, I was thinking about the tagline I picked for my blog: finding meaning in the mess.
I started to wonder: what if Iām not really living up to that tagline? I havenāt exactly been philosophizing about finding meaning.
But then I thought, well, finding meaning in the mess is kind of the default in life, isnāt it?
Despite our best efforts (and I think even for neurotypical people), life is often a mess. What we choose to do every dayāor have to doāis all in the pursuit of survival first. But once thatās out of the way, it becomes about finding meaning, even if we donāt consciously realize thatās what weāre doing.
So Iām covered!
Haha. But I think I originally conceptualized this tagline as something I might explore further, kind of in a silver linings way. This year has felt particularly chaotic, so the question becomes: What have I learned from that?Did some good come out of the chaos?
And I believe the answer is yes.
But I also think Iād be putting the cart before the horse if I didnāt address something else first:
Iāve been thinking about death a lot lately.
The other night, I realized Iād been thinking about it so much that I started to get nervous: was I experiencing a sense of impending doom? That can be a legitimate medical red flag.
I donāt know if thatās whatās going on. But itās true that death feels everywhere right now.
Look at this administration. Weāre seeing death all around us: the death of rights, the death of certain values (integrity? honesty?), and actual death in Ukraine, Gaza, and around the world of people who relied on USAID for sustenance.
I canāt look at the news without seeing death.
And then in our little familyās orbit:
My husbandās father died the same week our baby girl was born. His grandfather passed away a few weeks later. My grandmother had a stroke recently, and it seems like the end since sheās no longer responsive.
And of course, my mother died when my siblings and I were kids. That loss is as present as ever since becoming a mother myself.
But somehow more affecting, in some ways, is the sudden, brutal death of our dreams.
In just a few months, and even as grateful as we are to have our daughter, weāve gone from working on home projects and dreaming of future plans and vacationsā¦ to just existing.
Knowing our life here is now temporary.
Knowing that any day now, weāll find the foreclosure summons in the mailbox.
We poured so much energy into the fight at first. Side jobs, side hustles. I was out doing grocery deliveries three days after giving birth.
But the fight has since kind of gone out of us, as obstacle after obstacle knocks us back.
Weāre not really talking about the future anymore.
I havenāt really sat down to process thatā¦let alone grieve it.
I see photos of us from last fall and early winter, and I already donāt recognize those happy faces.
And honestly? I donāt really want to grieve it. It already sucks. The thought of sitting down and unpacking every regret, every smothered hope, every wrong turn, itās just too much.
And despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, Iām not really finding any solace in saying things like:
This is our journey. This is a new chapter. This is just another adventure.
Maybe itās some lingering trauma, or whatever you want to call it, from when we were kids. After my mom died, my dad used to say that: Itās a new chapter. He said it for different life events. But things never really settled down. Things never felt normal or stable again.
At some point he just stopped saying it.
And that train of thought led me to my first real sense of grief over my ADHD diagnosis.
After the evaluation, the practitioner told me I might feel some grief thinking about what couldāve been. I didnāt really connect with that at first. I thought:
āWell, that may be true for some people, but I am who I am, diagnosis or not.ā
Exceptā¦
In a way, an ADHD diagnosis feels like being told other people were right about you all along. That you are the reason everything in your life is a mess. That you donāt see things clearly, you make stupid mistakes. And worse: thereās not much you can do about it except maybe take medication to get closer to who you should beā¦ but arenāt.
And suddenly, I felt regret over getting the diagnosis, which, of course, is irrational, but hear me out.
The medication has helped. I feel more like a complete person. I donāt wake up feeling like a freshly-risen zombie anymoreāstumbling around, confused, hungry, disjointed.
Butā¦ does it matter?
I feel better, sure. But who cares, when our family is on the verge of losing our home?
Great. I have a little more focus during the day. But what good is that when I canāt translate it into any real income?
This is the part where I could try to find a hopeful way to wrap things up. Something uplifting. Something sunny.
But Iām not going to do that.
Sometimes you just have to sit amongst the debris of your life.
Psst. I’m starting to try to tackle my next steps, and to do that, I need to wrap my head around The B-Word (Bankruptcy). If you are interested, you can read more about that here.
Well, itās possible and probable that heās right. It could take five years or ten years, and thatās if weāre lucky.
In which case, my resistance to the idea doesnāt really change the reality, it just puts me in pain.
And I am trying to spark some big transformations in our lives, yes, I am. I have been mentally pushing hard on these entrepreneurial ideas we have. I have been resisting the urge to settle down, put the mask back on, and work at a job beneath my abilities simply because I know that otherwise I have to find a way to work with my rhythms and damn, they can be difficult. I canāt do big brain work, as I like to call it, in an 8 to 5 job. It just doesnāt work.
I have had success doing physical jobs within that frame work, and I do enjoy that quite a bit. I have no problem working in manufacturing, or cleaning, or food service. I really donāt, and in fact I love that those jobs are a natural weight management tool for me (as opposed to seated office jobs which make me feel like Iām wearing someone elseās body).
But, one caveat with those jobs is that after a while, my brain runs on overdrive while I do the physical work and that tends to result in me dreaming up some scheme to leave the job anyway. I canāt get the monkey in my brain to quiet down.
Add to that, if youāre an employee in one of these jobs, it can be difficult to bring in enough income to support a family, particularly if youāre not all that good at the social and political maneuvering required at many jobs to secure raises.
As usual, I digress, but all of that is an explanation for why Iām resisting that urge (compulsively resisting I might add), to apply for a regular job, one of those that doesnāt pay great, but at least the benefits are cheaper than the Marketplace. But at this point, I donāt know if I can be a ācompliantā (a word my former boss loved, which I think says a lot about him), employee.
So Iām sitting here, asking myself, how can I truly settle in to the understanding that the transformation I want could take a decade or more to happen?
How can I truly help myself to grasp that there is no quick fix coming? No lottery win? No unexpected inheritance (an idea that makes me feel queasy anyway, plus I don’t have rich relatives, but Iām including it because itās a fictional trope)? No surprise bonus (Iām not even working a job where that is probable)?Ā
Just a whole lot of one step forward, two steps back in our future.
Can I stomach that? Can I truly take the uncertainty without trying to find a way to cheat, to trick the universe by secretly hoping for a miracle?
How can I live with the idea that the cavalry isnāt coming?
Can I accept that itās just me and my husband (and baby and cats) painstakingly stacking one block on top of another while the universe shows up as an irate toddler who keeps smacking at the blocks, pissed at us for trying to build a little tower?
Let me ask myself this: what would I do differently if I truly understood that all of these hopes and aspirations were likely to take ten years or more to come to fruition?
We werenāt planning to put her in daycare just yet, mostly because of the cost. Iāve been working part-time in the mornings, and my husband works nights, so we figured we could make it work for a while. I thought daycare might be something we could consider if I found a higher-paying, full-time job.
Also, sheās still pretty little. (Even though had I not quit my job in December, I would have had to put her in daycare as early as 6 weeks.)
But then I sent an email to a daycare on a whim. My husband had been struggling with the accumulated lack of sleep and starting to make silly mistakes at work, and I was starting to feel hectic and rundown too.
This particular daycare only takes four babies in the infant room. By chance, I emailed right when they had an unexpected opening, and I happened to be the first person in line.
I thought we should give it a try. I hoped that if I could make some extra money during the afternoons, then maybe somehow things would work out.
I also secretly hoped to get some exercise and alone time in. (As a neurodivergent person, that alone time literally restores my ability to function. I donāt know how else to say it.)
But of course, first I had to see how she would do.
I was nervous. My husband was too. I was in daycare as a baby, along with my siblings, and I think we turned out fine. (And if youāre reading this blog and thinking āyouāre not fineā, well, my siblings are much more successful adults than I am, and they were in daycare too.)
Still, I read many opinions online about the ābestā age to start daycare (apparently after the age of one), and I was really apprehensive about leaving my daughter with strangers.
What reassured me was the fact that this daycare only takes four babies, even though theyāre licensed and could easily take more for profit. The ownerās toddler son is in the toddler room, and the infant room teacher has a young child of her own. Everything looked clean and organized. On the day I visited, I didnāt hear any crying from any of the babies or toddlers. They were all just happily playing or napping.
On her first day, my husband and I brought Ellie in late. We were procrastinating. The teacher reminded us weād need to be on time moving forward. Whoops. First day, and the parents are already in trouble.
The teacher said hello to the baby, and my daughter stared at her for a few minutes before grinning. And that was that.
I spent the rest of the day glued to the daycare app, refreshing constantly for updates. Every photo showed my baby girl smiling. When I picked her up at the end of the day, she was still smiling: happy, alert, content.
I think she liked it. The environment was fun and stimulating. I think now that sheās getting older and more aware, itās boring to be home with mama and papa, who are always tired.
So, we got through the first hurdle: the first week. And she did great.
I felt a sense of relief. My husband, bless his heart, sent me a text saying āthis is a new chapter, things are going to get better now!ā
I love him for his optimism, but it drives me nuts when he makes such declarations. In my crazy brain, heās tempting fate and inviting trouble. At the very least, heās counting chickens that havenāt hatched.
And here we are, week two. Guess where my daughter isnāt?
At daycare.
Because sheās sick.
Weāre all sick.
Which means Iām not working, so not only do we have a daycare bill, but Iām also not bringing in my regular income, let alone any extra.
Preparing to leave your baby with strangers is hard. But once you get past that, donāt forget to mentally (and financially?) prepare yourself for the fact that your child will get sick at daycare, and everyone in your home will probably catch it too.
As I was getting close to the end of my pregnancy, I was trying to find positive birth stories to read online.
A kind of terror develops at the end of pregnancy, or at least it does for some of us.
One poster on a Reddit thread referred to the feeling as feeling like she was waiting for her own execution.
Thatās a little rough, but otherwise describes it pretty well.
Birth is such an unknown, and it can truly be a life or death event for you and/or the baby.
Some people like to say things like, āmillions of women have done it,ā or, āyour body was made for this.ā
But many women have not survived it. Letās not sugarcoat that.
It can be dangerous. Full stop. And my heart truly, genuinely goes out to anyone who has experienced any kind of loss related to pregnancy, birth, postpartum and beyond.
And while many moments of the saga Iām about to relate are humorous, I just want to pause first and acknowledge the above.
The Search for Something Neutral to Read
There seemed to be two kinds of birth stories widely available online:
The horror stories
The ones where women claim to have done it all naturally without so much as a twinge of pain, and maybe even orgasmed or whatever.
Look, if you are one of those incredible unicorns who had the latter experience, Iām happy for you.
But I just really wanted to read some regular stories.
And my birth story turned out to be pretty regular, after all, for which Iām so unbelievably grateful. Iām going to share it here.
The Pressure Increases
I went for one of my regularly scheduled appointments on a Monday during, I think, the 38th week. My husband had just started a new job, and I had quit my job back in December and was trying to make up for the lost income with grocery delivery driving.
Things were a mess, but it was a relief not to have to play nice office girl at the end of my pregnancy.
Anyway, at my appointment, my blood pressure reading was a tad high, and for some reason it caught my attention that it had been steadily increasing over the last few visits.
I wasnāt yet into dangerous territory, in fact, the nurse referred to it as āyour blood pressure is normal, so thatās good,ā but I mentioned to my OB/GYN that it had been creeping up over the last few weeks.
She agreed that it was possibly concerning, and told me to come back the next day for another reading.
In I went the next day after trying very hard to be ~relaxed~ the night before.
Side note: I did realize that in the days leading up to this, I had been feeling a certain pressure, almost a rage feeling, in my head while completing my delivery trips.
I had attributed it to stress, but it was probably the developing hypertension.
Anyway, this time, my blood pressure was higher, and over the threshold. They told me again to come one more time.
If the next reading was again over the threshold, I would need to be induced.
I donāt know why, but that reality didnāt necessarily sink in, and I remained convinced that it was only accumulated stress. This is why I booked a massage for the next day, without consulting my doctor. I donāt recommend this, by the way; it was probably not a smart move.
Life Keeps Happening
That night, before the third appointment, my husband went off to work and I was supposed to go delivery driving. But, I just didnāt feel like it.
I goofed around and took a bath instead. I was chilling in the bath when my husband texted me that his father in Mexico had just had a serious heart attack.
I was worried of course, and asked him if he wanted to come home early, despite being new on the job.
I also expressed my hope that his father would quickly stabilize, and my husband decided he wanted to continue working.
About ten minutes later he called me crying and said, āmy dad is dead,ā which still breaks my heart to remember.
I picked him up, and when we got home he closed himself up in the bedroom to watch an old Mexican movie, whose lead actor apparently looked like his dad when he was young.
The next morning, I went for my massage, rattled, but prepared to get properly relaxed before my blood pressure reading.
Which didnāt work, shocker.
The reading was again over the threshold, and higher than the day before.
The PA who was on duty cheerfully asked me, āare you ready to have the baby today?ā
Despite intellectually knowing this was the possible outcome, I think I yelled āwhat, today?! NO!ā
They scheduled the induction at the hospital, and told me to go home, get my things, take my time, and go back to the hospital.
I texted my husband the news and then, on the hour drive back home to get him and our things, I was so jittery that I called my dad up and started a political argument.
Once at home, I just kind of wandered around throwing random things in a bag and lamenting the fact that I did not want to leave home and did not want to leave the cats alone.
I think at some point I just laid on the couch and scrolled on my phone, and my husband was like āuhhh, arenāt we supposed to be going?ā
I definitely was experiencing that off-to-the-gallows feeling and I stretched out the time at home as long as possible.
When we finally got on the road, I decided I was starving.
We stopped at a Mexican restaurant and I ate a massive plate of nachos.
Spoiler alert: no one warned me how much puking happens during labor. So yeah, you can guess what happened to the nachos.
After that, rush, rush, rush, we get to the hospital, get all checked in, and set up in the room.
And thenā¦.
We wait. And wait. And wait.
An Unfortunate Surprise (Which Maybe Shouldnāt Have Been a Surprise)
At that point (yes, not before), I started reading about inductions online, and thatās when I learned that an induction can take several days.
W.T.F.
I think thatās the moment when I just disassociated from the whole thing, more or less, which was very much for the best.
I received pitocin, and they did the foley balloon thing, and I was totally imprisoned in the bed between the IV, the balloon, and the baby heartbeat monitors.
So no recommended exercises for me, or bouncing on the ball, or using the fancy labor tub, or any of that.
The staff told me I was free to do all of it if I wantedā¦but, how?
That was a fib anyway, because when I took the baby heartbeat monitors off, a nurse came in to ask me āwhy?ā in a scolding tone.
When I asked to use the shower, suddenly I was not so free to do all of it, though I did ultimately get my shower. It was one of those weird little half-y squat showers as I tried not to get all the various things wet.
But I digress.
Obviously, given the events of the night before, my husband and I were in a weird mood.
He laid on the little plastic couch in the room, and I laid on the supremely uncomfortable bed, and we both pretty much decided that we would not try to be strong.
I think I even said that to the nurses several times. Like, yes, Iāll take the anti-nausea meds, yes, Iāll probably get the epidural. Iām not feeling tough today and I donāt feel like trying to be strong.
And yes, I want more juice in the little juice cup.
So began several hours of a quiet, laying-in-bed misery which I fortunately seem to have mostly erased from my memory.
I mean the nurses kept coming in and poking me with various things, and the foley balloon thing sucked, and the blood pressure cuff was too damn tight which is a personal pet peeve / sensory issue that sends me over the edge.
And I kept throwing up, which again, I never see anybody talk about as something to expect during labor!
I barely slept that night, and I think I complained a lot to my husband about hate, hate, hating the hospital, and wanting to home to my cats.
To add to the tragicomedy, my husband was having a serious flare up of his gastritis and absolutely terrible gas. So, yeah. Every time the nurse left the room, heād ask, is she gone? And let one rip, and inevitably sheād walk right back in.
This is the type of thing that would usually make me curl up inside and die from embarrassment, even though hospital staff, of all people, should understand gastric issues.
But like I said, dissociation. Highly recommend it.
Fortunately we only had to spend one night like that.
Arrival of the Blood Moon Princess
Whether Iām ascribing too much power to myself or not, for a while the next day I did some visualization exercises, where I imagined swimming up to my baby girl and telling her itās time to come out, and that I would show her the way, but we had to start moving.
Maybe it worked, because by evening, the labor seemed to be kicking up.
It was a full moon that night, and a blood moon.
I ended up getting the epidural, and again, disassociation. I can picture the scene now as if I had been standing in the doorway of the hospital room watching it, even though I was actually sitting on the bed getting a needle stuck in my back.
I donāt really remember what it felt like.
I can tell you that another thing people donāt seem to talk about is that SOMETIMES EPIDURALS DONāT WORK!
Yes, thatās right. Sometimes they straight up donāt work.
And often they only partially block the pain.
I had a few minutes or hours, I donāt know, where I wasnāt sure if it was working.
But it showed up for me in the end.
Still, you feel a lot. And when the doctor came in (fortunately my OB/GYN happened to be on rotation) and asked, āare you ready?ā I believe I yelled āNO!ā, again, and looked at my husband and said, āI donāt want to do this, letās go home.ā
That seems absurd when I look at my baby daughter today. But that moment is a real Schrodinger’s cat situation. We didnāt know what we were going to find in the box.
Despite the drama of that moment, the next little while was relatively calm.
I had a comical tussle with the honestly delightful labor nurse (no sarcasm here; she was great and I do not hold the following against her).
She asked me what I knew about pushing, and I responded something about the various things I read online, about how you are not supposed to strain and when itās time you want to direct your energy down in a kind of centered, forceful way.
Iām pretty sure she just blinked at me. I know that she informed me that actually, it should be just like pooping. Basically, she said, you want to strain.
Well, I still think sheās wrong, and I informed her that I for one, donāt poop that way.
She could tell that I was holding back and not following her directions, so a ridiculous passive aggressive back-and-forth ensued for a minute or two.
And the room was so, so quiet, and it was incredibly awkward.
Letās Get This Party Started
I didnāt end up buying or preparing any of the fancy things that I had read about months before (a birth playlist! fairy lights! aroma therapy!) for the hospital.
But I did have my free Pandora app, the same one that Iāve had for over 10 years now, complete with ads. I put my secret Taylor Swift Pandora station on, and thatās what everybody in the delivery room got to listen to. And it was pretty chill.
So yeah, dissociation and Taylor Swift. Those are the recommendations.
Given that the epidural worked, and while there was plenty of sensation and sometimes pain, I couldnāt actually feel the movement of the baby.
So as we were getting close to the end, the doctor asked me if I wanted to see how much progress we were making, and told me to put my hand down there.
I did that, and felt a slimy little baby head covered in hair.
And it was literally the most alien, foreign sensation. I yelled āoh my god!ā, and snatched my hand back.
A few minutes later my baby girl was out, and promptly pooped on me. My husband cried as she arrived, something for which I will always love him.
Things Take a Turn
I always hear stories about the moment someone felt they became a mother.
I donāt think I had that moment.
But as they plopped her on my chest, I do very clearly remember her little purple hand flailing around and I had what I think is a normal human reaction. Like, here is this fragile, delicate creature, and I am responsible for her, and she needs help.
So I reached out and grasped that tiny purple hand.
She didnāt grasp back. She was crying, and I tried to soothe her.
But the nurses told me that actually we need her to cry more, sheās not crying enough. They started poking at her and whatever else, and the next thing I know, they are taking her off to the NICU for respiratory distress.
I could give you a play-by-play of the next moments, but I donāt really want to. Suffice to say, everybody got quiet, and it was uncomfortable, though they assured me (in not very convincing tones) that she would be fine and that she had just opened her mouth and gulped fluid on the way out.
And in this awkward silence, my Pandora station played Pink Pony Club while the doctor sewed up my junk (which fortunately only suffered minor tears).
And ta-da! Thatās the story of how my beautiful girl was born.
Any Conclusions?
A few other notable events occurred, such as a silly argument between my husband and I about ordering a post-birth Pizza Hut pizza, and the fact that our little girl was in the NICU for a few days.
In the end, though, she was able to go home with us when I was discharged and I did not continue to have blood pressure issues.
Important PSA: postpartum preeclampsia can happen! Thatās something I also didnāt know.
It wasnāt a magical fun fest, but it was a pretty positive experience in the end.
A lot of people talk about having birth trauma, but blessedly, I donāt feel traumatized by my experience (and yes, I know I am very, very fortunate in that).
On one hand, luck is responsible for that.
On the other hand, I think it also helped that despite reading natural birthing books months earlier, I ultimately never wrote a birthing plan, never hired a doula, never read about birth complications in great detail though I knew generally what they are, and never got really rigid in my thinking about how I wanted things to go.
I want to stress that I am not knocking any of those things, and I know many people advise the above for good reasons!
But for me, I think it was better that I didnāt do any of that.
Finally, I think it was helpful that my husband and I just decided we werenāt going to be tough, and we werenāt going to be brave, and we werenāt going to be strong.
Itās counterintuitive, but sometimes itās easier to be all of those things in the appropriate amounts if you just cut yourself some slack.
Maybe itās cliched, but the truth is that what I truly feel thinking back on those hectic days is gratitude, gratitude, relief, and gratitude: that we all made it through and got to go home together, to our very confused kitties who were not at all impressed by our new, screaming family member.
Max was disappointed to learn that this is a changing table, and not a cat bed. Image by Nina Harper
ADHD is not one size fits all, and neither are the financial strategies that will work best.
However, there are some common financial strategies that tend to be most effective for people with ADHD, and some that may be less than helpful or even detrimental.
Automated Savings Transfers
Automated savings transfers can be your best friend.
Two caveats to note:
No matter how you set it up, this will work best if you have no access or visibility to the savings account without jumping through several hoops. In other words, a savings account tied directly to your checking, especially if you can easily move that money with two clicks, will likely not be effective.
If you can set it up so that an amount is directly deposited into another account entirely with each paycheck, that will typically work very well. Again, this assumes you do not have easy access to the savings account.
For some, it may be very helpful to explore setting up a savings account with a small, local bank that has limited mobile banking functions. The more you can create little barriers for yourself in accessing that savings account impulsively, the better this strategy will work.
Personally, Iāve also had success with setting up add-on CDs. These are CDs into which you can deposit money, but you cannot easily move the funds without contacting the bank, and you will incur a financial penalty if you move it before the CD matures. Again, it may be helpful to look at smaller, local banks that lack robust mobile banking. You do also usually have to deposit a certain amount to open an add-on CD, but there are options that are as low as $250.00.
If you read about add-on CDs online, you will find many experts telling you that they donāt have the highest interest rates. Thatās true, but you need to be clear on why you are doing it. A high interest rate is of no use to a person who canāt hold on to a few bucks to save their life. The point isnāt the interest rate. The point is the additional obstacles inherent in a CD that stops you from sabotaging you.
To circle back a little to another point, the ease of moving money around these days through mobile banking apps, at least when it comes to savings, can work against people with ADHD.
When I think about this, I think about a former co-worker whose husband was extremely impulsive (for what reasons, I donāt know). She opened a savings account at a small, local bank in the next town over, refused to get checks for it, and cut up the debit card when it arrived. She would withdraw cash from her regular checking account each paycheck, stick it in an envelope, and drop it in the deposit dropbox after hours. Her husband was not listed on the account, though he was aware of it and, in theory, supported the idea of saving.
Iām not saying you have to set up another person to keep you away from your money (though maybe you do), but the idea of setting up a bank account where you deposit cash only, with no additional interactions, upselling calls, or mobile banking, could be something to consider.
Autopay
Put as many bills as possible on autopay, assuming you have adequate cash flow to cover them.
You may need to enlist the help of a trusted family member or friend to get everything set up and ensure that your cash flow will support it. But once itās in place, and if you can maintain your income, this will be incredibly helpful.
Say No to Credit Cards
I didnāt have a credit card until I was probably 25. I miss those days and wish I had resisted the urge to get one.
If youāre particularly impulsive with spending on little things here and there, do not even let yourself have a credit card.
To add to that: do not do business with a bank that constantly tries to get you to open oneafter youāve said no. Banks are not your friends, and they are actively working against you when they do this.
If you insist that you must have a credit card to build credit, do this:
Get a credit card with a low limit.
Put one single bill on autopay on that credit card.
Set up an automatic transaction from your checking to pay that bill.
Cut up the credit card and never look at the account again (unless the card expires, etc.)
Do not even think about researching credit cards with fancy rewards programs.
People will talk to you about how you need to request a bigger limit or use more of the credit to increase your score.
Ignore those people.
This method, of putting one single bill on your credit card and setting up an auto pay to pay off the credit card each month, will be enough to get your credit score into the range where you will have access to a favorable interest rate on a mortgage or car loan.
Once you are in that range, a higher credit score than good enough honestly will not make any material difference.
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Cash Envelope Method
If you arenāt familiar with the cash envelope method of money management, you can get an overview online here, including some pros and cons.
The cash envelope method is particularly effective if you do the following:
Set up your automated savings, either by direct depositing to a separate savings account at a different institution, or by setting up an automatic transfer each payday to a separate savings account. I recommend the direct deposit option; itās more effective.
Get all your bills on autopay.
Sit down and figure out your weekly expenses for groceries, household supplies, gas, and other small purchases (itās okay to build in a little for snacks or treats).
Cut up all the credit cards and debit cards.
Swing by the bank the Saturday after each payday (or whatever day works for you) and withdraw the predetermined amount of cash from step 3.
You now only have that amount of cash to spend.
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Now, other financial types might say: But what about an emergency? You need a credit card or a debit card!
Hereās the truth: Yes, there are always pros and cons to any strategy. But the system above will work for you if you’re the kind of person who mostly shops at the same stores, uses the same bank, and goes to work every day.
If you travel for business, maybe thatās a different story.
But a lot of contemporary financial advice will only help you to rationalize feeding the beast. The emergencies! You need to build your credit! You need mobile banking for full transparency!
Well, maybe. Only you can weigh all of that out. But those people saying you need, need, need are going to be nowhere to be found when youāre trying to figure out how to file for bankruptcy or avoid eviction or foreclosure.
Is that extreme? Maybe. Maybe not. Iām staring foreclosure in the face right now, and I can tell you: I didnāt think it would happen to me and thereās certainly no one jumping in to help, despite this kind of cute faux-concern. Because the cute faux-concern is intended to sell you things, and most likely friends and family who repeat that advice donāt have to fight themselves every single day just to keep going.
My point is, get real about your likely level of impulsiveness, and put protections in place. The system above does work, and has worked for me.
But if you abandon it and find yourself underwater (like I am right now), a Band-Aid wonāt repair a bullet hole, as the saying goes.
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Limit Your Consumption-Oriented Content
If you know you have a weakness for pretty things (maybe cozy home accessories make you lose your mind, or the latest tech gets your heart pumping) then you need to do the following:
Avoid consumption-driven media. Donāt read online shopping listicles. Donāt watch videos about the latest tech. Stay far away from clothing āhaulā videos or anything that encourages you to buy, buy, buy.
In short, again: do not feed the beast, people!
Or at least try to put him on a diet, but I think in this case cold turkey is best.
Above all, think about the K.I.S.S. philosophy: Keep It Simple, Silly.
Do your banking with two banks only. Maximum of three.
If you must have a credit card, make it one. Maximum of two.
Do whatever you can not to open accounts with every bank or lender offering whatever tempting incentive.
If things do go southāhopefully only temporarily soā, and you havenāt kept it simple, youāll find yourself tangled in an overwhelming web of accounts, transfers, autopays, and confusion. I’m speaking from experience here.
Be very cautious with the following strategies:
Hiring a financial planner or coach. Yes, this can be awesome with the right fit! But there are a lot of unethical people out there, with hidden fees, shady practices, or just a lack of experience disguised in pretty packaging. Even if you find someone “ethical” by industry standards, remember: they wonāt act in your best interests unless your best interests align perfectly with theirs.
Personal finance apps. Oh yeah, they all sound like magic solutions. But they arenāt. Youāll likely end up with a bunch of apps cluttering your phone, youāll have given out your personal information everywhere, and youāll probably feel more scattered and confused than ever. Just say no.
Complicated investment schemes. Plenty of people will argue with me here, but if your friend approaches you about house flipping, investing in rental properties, buying a property together, or something more nebulous, be extremely cautious. Itās very easy to get in over your head. If you’re in over your head with a neurotypical person, it could spell the end of your relationship, or even leave you holding the bag in a serious way.
Ditto for complicated tax strategies. Iāve worked in a tax office and am in the process of eventually obtaining my Enrolled Agent tax credential (currently stalled out on that due to the cost of getting it all done, even though itās much more accessible than a CPA credential!). So let me point out something here that many people generally donāt seem to understand. Hiring a tax preparer DOES NOT absolve you of responsibility for your tax returns and records and does not protect you from consequences. If you have managed to hire an ethical tax preparer, they will help you navigate and fight any disputes, yes. But their name on your tax return means squat as far as avoiding repercussions for something that the IRS or state taxing authority takes issue with.
Do I sound like Iām taking a very defensive stance here? You betcha. The world is as predatory as it ever was, and people with ADHD make for very tasty prey (until their bank accounts are drained, of course).
