Tips for Managing Debt with ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can make paying bills, sticking to a budget, and repaying debt feel close to impossible. If ADHD is making it hard for you to effectively manage your money, the trick is to work with your tendencies instead of trying to fight against them. Here are some simple ways to improve your finances and get out of debt if you struggle with ADHD (and even if you don't).

Why does ADHD make debt repayment hard?

Per the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH), ADHD is a ADHD is a developmental disorder characterized by an ongoing pattern of some combination of inattention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity. 

People with ADHD may struggle to maintain focus, follow-through on a task, stay calm, or think about an action thoroughly before taking it. As you might imagine, paying bills, creating a budget, and even making wise financial decisions on a moment-to-moment basis isn't easy when you can't focus or slow down to consider your actions.

Other ways that ADHD can make money management and debt repayment tricky include:

• Time blindness: Individuals with ADHD sometimes have a hard time accurately perceiving how time is passing. If you've lost track of time, it's easy to start missing due dates, leaving you with late fees or worse.
• Task avoidance: Financial tasks like making a budget or researching debt relief option might feel too overwhelming, causing you to put if off, which only makes it feel more overwhelming, so you keep putting it off, etc.
• Impulse spending: You don't need to have ADHD to to fall victim to impulse spending or retail therapy, but you may be more susceptible to the allure of fast and easy "treat" purchases.

Examples of how ADHD can cost you money

• Missing monthly payments and getting charged with late fees
• Getting kicked off a creditor hardship plan for missing payments
• Continuing to pay high interest rates because talking to your creditor or signing up for a more affordable debt relief plan feels too overwhelming
• Letting groceries spoil because you struggle to stick with a meal plan
• Getting fixated on a new hobby or interest and spending excessively

How to create a debt plan that works with ADHD

Diligently reviewing your expenses and manually making payments each month probably isn't going to be your best course of action if you've got ADHD. Instead, try to find ways to separate your bad money habits from the debt repayment process.

Leverage automation

The less you have to do manually, the more likely you are to not get to offtrack. If available, consider automating your:

• Paycheck - have it deposited directly into a designated checking account
• Bills - have them automatically paid out of that checking account
• Debts - have them automatically paid out of that checking account

You can use a separate debit card or credit card (with a low limit) to handle day-to-day expenses. The key is to limit your access to your own cash and ensure that the things that need to get paid, get paid, whether or not you're paying attention.

Create good friction

If impulsivity and hyperactivity are making it hard to focus on debt repayment (and easy to spend money on everything else), consider making it harder for you to spend money quickly and impulsively.

• Remove your credit card information from shopping websites
• Delete apps for shopping platforms from your phone
• Lock up your credit card in a safe deposit box or give it to a trusted friend who'll hold you accountable

Anything you can do to slow the spending process is a good type of friction to introduce.

Keep it short and simple

"Don't try to swallow the whole elephant" is a (slightly gruesome) phrase you may have heard before. It means, "Don't try to solve an enormous problem all at once."

For someone with ADHD and a lot of debt, wrapping your arms around the problem, understanding all of your options, and taking action on one of those options probably feels more like a savanna full of elephants.

You don't have to solve it all in one go. Work within yourself. Set small, achievable goals. Today I will gather the most recent billing statement for all of my credit cards and loans. Achieve each goal and give yourself a break, then come back for the next small goal when you're ready.

Faster is often better, especially when it comes to your money, but slow progress is better than no progress.

Find the right tool

There are a lot of budget and debt relief options out there, which can be overwhelming on it's own. But the good news is that somewhere out there is the exact right tool or solution for you.

And that's huge if you have ADHD, because you if you can't do it yourself (or you don't want to), you don't have to. There are apps that can help you keep track of your bills and spending. There are debt relief programs that can do all of the debt repayment heavy lifting for you.

At MMI, we offer multiple nonprofit debt relief solutions to simplify your debt repayment and save you money in the process. It's the best kind of set-it-and-forget-it: we consolidate your credit cards into a single, affordable monthly payment, work with your creditors to lower your interest rates, and get you out of debt in as little as 24 months.

It all starts with a free online financial analysis. Get started today and let us make debt repayment easier and less stressful for you.