What Is the ADHD Tax?

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsWhy Does ADHD Come With a Tax?The Impact of the ADHD TaxHow to Regain Control and Avoid Paying the ADHD TaxGet Help with Debt Management

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Why Does ADHD Come With a Tax?

The Impact of the ADHD Tax

How to Regain Control and Avoid Paying the ADHD Tax

Get Help with Debt Management

Close

The ADHD tax is the financial toll your ADHD symptoms take. Certain characteristics of ADHD, likeimpulsivityandinattention,can be costly. Research has found that people with ADHD are more likely to have problems with impulsive buying and going over their credit card limits. They also tend to earn less, save less, and have more financial problems than people who don’t have ADHD.

Maybe you bought all those vegetables and discovered them moldy in your fridge drawer? Or you forget to make that credit card payment on time and now owe a late fee? It happens to everyone once in a while, but for people with ADHD, it can be an ongoing problem. Even small amounts of money lost or spent can add up over time.

At a GlanceCertain ADHD traits can take a real toll on your finances. Poor memory can make it hard to remember to pay your bills on time. Distraction might cause you to lose items or forget about the meal you have in the oven. It all adds up! It’s inconvenient and can sometimes lead to credit problems and chronic debt. Strategies to help you deal with this ADHD tax include asking for fee waivers, changing payment settings for free trials, opening separate bill pay accounts, doing ADHD-friendly meal planning, and creating shopping wish lists. If you are struggling with financial issues due to your ADHD, talk to a financial advisor about managing your spending and debts.

At a Glance

Certain ADHD traits can take a real toll on your finances. Poor memory can make it hard to remember to pay your bills on time. Distraction might cause you to lose items or forget about the meal you have in the oven. It all adds up! It’s inconvenient and can sometimes lead to credit problems and chronic debt. Strategies to help you deal with this ADHD tax include asking for fee waivers, changing payment settings for free trials, opening separate bill pay accounts, doing ADHD-friendly meal planning, and creating shopping wish lists. If you are struggling with financial issues due to your ADHD, talk to a financial advisor about managing your spending and debts.

While many people think of ADHD as just struggling to focus or being easily distracted, the condition actually impacts most executive functions, including the ones needed for managing money.

For example, poor working memory can cause you to forget dinner is in the oven, forget a bill is due, miss a doctor’s appointment (and get stuck paying a no-show fee), or forget to cancel that free trial you signed up for.

Examples of ADHD TaxWasting perishable items because you forgot you bought themCarrying interest on credit accounts and loans due to impulsive spendingOwing late fees because you forgot to pay bills on timeEarning less at work due to professional challengesSpending money on new interests you are temporarilyhyperfixatedon

Examples of ADHD Tax

Wasting perishable items because you forgot you bought themCarrying interest on credit accounts and loans due to impulsive spendingOwing late fees because you forgot to pay bills on timeEarning less at work due to professional challengesSpending money on new interests you are temporarilyhyperfixatedon

For finances, that excess delay discounting can make it hard to set aside money for long-term savings or avoid tapping into money you’re supposed to be putting toward a bill due at the end of the month.

To make it worse, ADHD can make maintaining steady, full-time employment difficult or create obstacles to completing the education and training required for higher-paying jobs.

Both of these issues can end up leading to lower income or inconsistent income that makes it hard to build up savings or even just avoid sinking deeper into debt.

Sometimes, the tax is small: a few dollars wasted on groceries that went untouched and rotted in your fridge; a small late fee for forgetting to pay a bill on time; the extra gas you burned through because you spaced out while driving and missed your turn.

But for some, the debt just keeps piling on:impulsive purchases, wasted spending, all the fees and fines you rack up for missing due dates and appointments or forgetting to move your car on street sweeping day.

Beyond the sheer cost of those things, chronicdebtand multiple late payments can end up ruining your credit.

With poor credit comes higher interest rates which means you end up paying even more on that debt. Bad credit can also make it hard to qualify for a mortgage, which means you might be stuck throwing money at rent even if you’re financially ready to own your own home.

Avoid Impulsive Spending with ADHD

Then, we get overwhelmed because it seems so easy for everyone else but for some reason, we just can’t seem to get it together. If that sounds painfully familiar, here are some ADHD-friendly strategies to help you regain control of your finances.

Request Fee Waivers

Overdraft fees and late fees can add up. Fortunately, I’ve learned that many banks and some service providers will remove these fees from your account if you just call and ask. You don’t even have to provide a reason or justify your lateness. You just have to make the request.

They won’t do it every time, but as long as you have made the payment in question, they’ll often do it at least once. My bank will waive up to three overdraft fees per year, for example. Before I started treatment for ADHD, I was using up all three of those waivers every year.

Change Payment Settings on Free Trials the Day You Sign Up

Another sneaky ADHD tax is the automatic renewal that kicks in after the free trial you signed up for. Sometimes, even if you put it in your calendar, you’ll forget or avoid doing it until it’s too late.

To lower that risk, go into your account settings as soon as you sign up for the trial. In many cases, the “automatic renewal” function is a setting you can toggle on or off.

If it’s not, you might able to simply remove the card information you used to sign up. That way, the service doesn’t have a card to charge automatically. Instead, they’ll send you lots of payment reminders which should serve as helpful reminders to cancel that subscription if you don’t want it.

Open a Separate Bill Pay Account

To prevent impulse spending from wiping out money that was meant to go toward bills, consider opening a second checking account. When you get paid, send the money you need for bills to that account. Leave the debit card for it at home. Then, set up autopay for your bills on that new account and forget about it. Use your old checking account for daily spending.

Keeping the money separate lets you benefit from the “out of sight, out of mind” default mode of your ADHD brain. The bill money is already deducted from your balance so the amount you see in your spending account is the balance you actually have available for spending.

Do ADHD-Friendly Meal Planning

Meal planning is not often seen as an ADHD-friendly, strategy but I’ve found a way to make it work for me—and it’s almost completely eliminated wasteful spending on groceries. Here’s what I do:

Technically, this isn’t meal planning in the way you often see online. I’m not spending an entire Sunday crafting perfectly portioned meals for each day of the week. I’m just stocking the supplies I need to cook big batches of food on the days when I have the motivation to cook and then subsisting on reheated leftovers on days when all I can manage to do is throw something in the microwave.

How to Use a Planner With ADHD

Create a Shopping Wish List

It’s tempting to go all-in when you find a new interest to fixate on, but so many of those new interests fade in a matter of weeks or months. Still, the intensity of that fixation when it first strikes makes it so hard to resist buying the expensive guitar (or drums, or cello, or violin, or Theremin) that you are now determined to learn.

For me, it helps to do the research and pick out the things I want to get for my new interest and then just put them on a list (or add them to a shopping cart but don’t checkout). It’s kind of like simulated shopping, so it partially satisfies that impulse to buy without actually buying anything.

If things have gotten really out of hand and you’re struggling to stay above water, find a nonprofit credit counseling organization, like theNational Foundation for Credit Counseling. They can help you make sense of where you’re at and come up with a personalized plan for tackling your debt.

Takeaways

Financial Stress: How to Cope

4 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Koerts J, Bangma DF, Fuermaier ABM, Mette C, Tucha L, Tucha O.Financial judgment determination in adults with ADHD.J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2021;128(7):969-979. doi:10.1007/s00702-021-02323-1Bangma DF, Tucha L, Fuermaier ABM, Tucha O, Koerts J.Financial decision-making in a community sample of adults with and without current symptoms of ADHD. Sudzina F, ed.PLoS ONE. 2020;15(10):e0239343. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239343Beauchaine TP, Ben-David I, Sela A.Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, delay discounting, and risky financial behaviors: A preliminary analysis of self-report data. Lidzba K, ed.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(5):e0176933. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0176933Bangma DF, Koerts J, Fuermaier ABM, et al.Financial decision-making in adults with ADHD.Neuropsychology. 2019;33(8):1065-1077. doi:10.1037/neu0000571

4 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Koerts J, Bangma DF, Fuermaier ABM, Mette C, Tucha L, Tucha O.Financial judgment determination in adults with ADHD.J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2021;128(7):969-979. doi:10.1007/s00702-021-02323-1Bangma DF, Tucha L, Fuermaier ABM, Tucha O, Koerts J.Financial decision-making in a community sample of adults with and without current symptoms of ADHD. Sudzina F, ed.PLoS ONE. 2020;15(10):e0239343. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239343Beauchaine TP, Ben-David I, Sela A.Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, delay discounting, and risky financial behaviors: A preliminary analysis of self-report data. Lidzba K, ed.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(5):e0176933. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0176933Bangma DF, Koerts J, Fuermaier ABM, et al.Financial decision-making in adults with ADHD.Neuropsychology. 2019;33(8):1065-1077. doi:10.1037/neu0000571

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Koerts J, Bangma DF, Fuermaier ABM, Mette C, Tucha L, Tucha O.Financial judgment determination in adults with ADHD.J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2021;128(7):969-979. doi:10.1007/s00702-021-02323-1Bangma DF, Tucha L, Fuermaier ABM, Tucha O, Koerts J.Financial decision-making in a community sample of adults with and without current symptoms of ADHD. Sudzina F, ed.PLoS ONE. 2020;15(10):e0239343. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239343Beauchaine TP, Ben-David I, Sela A.Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, delay discounting, and risky financial behaviors: A preliminary analysis of self-report data. Lidzba K, ed.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(5):e0176933. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0176933Bangma DF, Koerts J, Fuermaier ABM, et al.Financial decision-making in adults with ADHD.Neuropsychology. 2019;33(8):1065-1077. doi:10.1037/neu0000571

Koerts J, Bangma DF, Fuermaier ABM, Mette C, Tucha L, Tucha O.Financial judgment determination in adults with ADHD.J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2021;128(7):969-979. doi:10.1007/s00702-021-02323-1

Bangma DF, Tucha L, Fuermaier ABM, Tucha O, Koerts J.Financial decision-making in a community sample of adults with and without current symptoms of ADHD. Sudzina F, ed.PLoS ONE. 2020;15(10):e0239343. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239343

Beauchaine TP, Ben-David I, Sela A.Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, delay discounting, and risky financial behaviors: A preliminary analysis of self-report data. Lidzba K, ed.PLoS ONE. 2017;12(5):e0176933. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0176933

Bangma DF, Koerts J, Fuermaier ABM, et al.Financial decision-making in adults with ADHD.Neuropsychology. 2019;33(8):1065-1077. doi:10.1037/neu0000571

Meet Our Review Board

Share Feedback

Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

What is your feedback?