Let’s talk about money
Eww.
Money money money. But more importantly, let’s talk about why you can’t keep a budget.
If you are in the ADHD camp like myself, the idea of keeping a budget, let alone tracking your spending is next to impossible. I myself often will observe Benji as he swipes his debit card on yet ANOTHER out to eat lunch when I swore to myself that I would pack a lunch… but the food doesn’t hit the dopamine like Jason’s Deli… and I want ice cream. I swear to god, I do not go to Jason’s Deli for the food, I go… for the ice cream.
So. When you find yourself in this situation of:
– knowing you shouldn’t spend the money
– spending the money anyway as you are screaming at yourself to not spend the money
– flinching internally as you say “eh, it will work out”
– going into a panic 3 days later when you run out of money because “oops, 1 day of buying lunch turned into 4 days of buying lunch and dinner”
Then this is the blog for you.
I do not (yet) have the solution, but I do know some of the things that have been blocking me, so I wanted to share.
1: Budgeting and tracking expenses.
I have often tried this, and quite honestly, the entire thing seems like an exercise in futility. This is in the same camp as a neurotypical just telling us to “buy a planner” and “stick to the check list”
I can make a budget, and I can have the best of intentions, but at the end of the day, Benji is a wild animal who is very hungry and is driven by unbalanced hormones and dopamine deficiency. It is very difficult keeping this system balanced without medication. And I am incredibly stubborn and refuse to go medicated, so that just leaves me to endless tinkering and experimentation.
The issue with budgeting and tracking expenses comes in a few ways.
Phase 1: we make the plan
Phase 2: we throw the plan out the window when our brains says “buy that shiny thing”
Phase 3: we come back to the budget, fudge the numbers a bit, feel the shame of the entire thing
Phase 4: the discomfort of facing a budget and not being able to control ourselves eventually leads us to stop tracking the numbers again and we eventually fall back into ignoring it all together and praying to god that we can pay rent at the end of the month.
The issue, as I have seen it, is the guilt and shame that comes up when I track the numbers. I have been tracking every single penny that I spend for the last 6 months. And every time, I have the perfect budget planned out. And every single time…. The budget does not work.
But, if you can face the shame around this, then you get access to data. And data is our friend. Data shows us our patterns. And when we see our patterns, we can begin to solve the real problem.
2: Solving the real problem
My biggest problem is food. I like to eat out. Or more specifically, the fast food industry with the super processed food hi-jacks my hormones, hunger signals, and dopamine receptors and essentially… I get hit by a drug stronger than heroin and I can’t say no. It becomes INSANELY DIFFICULT to say no. And for a long time I blamed myself because I didn’t understand the driving forces underneath this. But now I do.
To solve the money problem, you have to solve the food problem. To solve the food problem, you have to understand your hormones and dopamine system. And to solve this, you have to know one thing:
No matter what, if you have ADHD, DO NOT EAT THE POISONED APPLE.
That food is specifically designed to hook you back in every single time. There is not just one cheat day. Your body gets a hit, and it pulls you back in every single time. And those with ADHD understand exactly how difficult it is to pull away from that, especially with executive dysfunction.
So. That being said. Find a diet that works for you. Suffer for 1 week, maybe 2. Sit with the utter sheer boredom of that food, and eventually, the dopamine and hormones stabilize and you regain control of your eating again. And after that, the cravings are much more manageable. You can say no to a mild craving, you cannot say no to a hormone field dopamine starved crazy hit to your brain on the drive to work. Trust me, I have tried, it doesn’t work.
So what does work? Honestly… I only have one move that works for me. Leave the bank card and cash at home. Go to work. Pack lunch. If you CAN’T buy it, then you can’t buy it. Part of my entire experiment with ADHD is learning how to shape my life by shaping my environment and the tools I have access to. Remove the funds, and you remove the ability to buy food. It’s gonna suck, you’re gonna hate it, and if you left a back door open to get food, you’re gonna buy food. You literally cannot trust yourself at all. Just grin and bear it and do the best that you can. But every time you eat, eat real food, nothing processed. Do this enough times and you will rebalance out.
So, let’s say you succeed with this, and balance out the system again. Your body and brain are running on real food, and you beat the cravings. Now you go back next month and see that you didn’t spend $873 eating out, and $245 going to the grocery store. Suddenly, you fixed your budget by fighting the real battle. Hormones and dopamine. Not “sticking to a budget”
And guess what, the moment you can come to that budget, and see a goal met. Your brain will do something cool. It will release endorphins. You will feel good. Dopamine acquired from good habits. Brain wants to repeat that loop. Suddenly you just broke a pattern and laid the groundwork for a new one.
Well done soldier, and we live to fight another day.