I’m a personal finance writer with ADHD. These 5 tips help me crush my financial goals.

As a personal finance writer, my job is to empower people by giving them tools to make financial decisions that will positively impact their lives. But I’ll be the first to admit that, as a person with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), I often have difficulty following a lot of common personal finance advice myself.

People like me with ADHD struggle with executive functioning skills, and that can have a massive impact on their quality of life, including on the ability to manage finances. People with ADHD have extreme difficulty engaging in tasks they find boring or unpleasant (like budgeting), have difficulty keeping track of details (like when bills are due) or have poor impulse control (like overspending).

Living with ADHD can be challenging, and if it affects your ability to manage money, that can impact much more than just your day-to-day finances — it can affect your mental health, too.

Before I was diagnosed with ADHD, I tried countless common strategies to manage money, only to feel frustrated and hopeless every time. Since then, I realized I was following advice for people without ADHD. But my brain worked differently, and I had to manage my finances differently, too.

These are just a few methods I use to manage money as a person with ADHD. Whether you have ADHD or you just want to try some new budgeting strategies, consider these steps to start paying down debt, save more and budget like a pro.

1. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ isn’t always best.

Traditional budgeting advice heavily emphasizes setting bills on autopay from your checking account and forgetting about them. While that’s great advice for many people, it never worked for me. If I don’t check my bank account frequently, I won’t realize until weeks or months later that I forgot to cancel a subscription or that a regular bill jumped in price.

My solution? A homemade budgeting spreadsheet, where I track my bills, monthly spending, debt repayment progress and monthly budget. I’m paid biweekly, and every payday, I sit down and pay all my bills for the upcoming two weeks, then move money into savings. Whatever is left is free to spend. That way, I know exactly how much money I have for food and discretionary spending over the next two weeks. By managing my money this way, I feel in control of my own finances and feel more confident making financial decisions. (You can also try this by setting up split deposits, if your bank offers them.)

This is an example page of my personal budgeting spreadsheet, which lets me track money coming in, which bills are coming up, which bills I’ve paid and how much money I have left after bill payments.

2. Make budgeting as manual as possible.

By “manual”, I mean holding money literally in your hands in order to better understand your cash flow. Spending exclusively on debit and credit cards is very easy — sometimes too easy. Some ADHDers find it harder to stay on track of their spending when they can swipe a card for every purchase.

I use a physical planner for all my weekly meetings and to-do lists, and my desk is covered in sticky notes, notebooks and other bits of paper. If that describes your process, why not make your budgeting physical, too? Try pulling your discretionary funds in cash after you pay bills. Grab some envelopes, label them and divide your funds, just like you would with a budgeting spreadsheet.

For example, if you have $500 every pay period after bills, you might put $100 in cash in an envelope marked “Savings,” $300 in “Food and household” and another $100 in “Fun money.” This is also called cash stuffing, and it’s a great way to help ADHDers who have a hard time visualizing money. Don’t just visualize your funds — hold them.

3. Give yourself frequent rewards.

Making savings goals isn’t usually someone’s idea of an exciting Friday night. ADHDers often have a hard time focusing on topics that don’t interest them or don’t have immediate rewards, so it can be hard for some to prioritize staying on budget or saving money. But while saving isn’t immediately rewarding (at least, not as much as spending money), it’s an important tool for meeting your financial goals.

So, why not reward yourself for your goals now? If you want to save more, try setting rewards for yourself at specific savings amounts, such as every $300 or $500 saved. Make your rewards small (along the lines of a meal out, rather than designer clothing), and make them frequent. If you only set rewards once you save $10,000, it will be harder to find the motivation.

David DeWitt, a certified financial planner with ADHD who specializes in financial planning for people with the disorder, says his clients have a hard time wrapping their heads around far-off possibilities, like buying a house. They need smaller goals to stay grounded.

“When it comes to money, we’re really wired to (have) steep discounts on future rewards and very high premiums on near-term rewards,” DeWitt says. “Things that we can see and feel and can tangibly wrap our head around — we place a higher value on that, because it’s in our mind.”

4. Put up roadblocks to avoid impulsive spending.

Impulse spending can be a major problem for ADHDers. The urge to get something now, even if it’s out of your budget, can sometimes be too strong to ignore.

If you struggle with impulse spending, consider the 24-hour rule: If you’re tempted to buy something online, leave it in your cart for at least 24 hours. The next day, you might find that you were less excited about the actual item and more excited about the thrill of buying something fun.

I’ve also had success doing no-spend weeks, where I swear off buying anything except for groceries and other household necessities for a week, to tamp down on my monthly spending. Meeting my goal and ending the week successfully without buying anything extra can be a great boost in motivation.

DeWitt says he wasn’t able to buck his own overspending habit until he was able to understand his own values. It wasn’t until he began to weigh the benefits of buying something now versus the security of savings that he could begin to change the habit. But it’s not an overnight process, he says.

“If you really are an impulse spender who’s in a habit, expect it to take a long time, like over a year of continuously having to go forward, take a step backward, keep addressing it. But it will pay off if you keep at it,” DeWitt says.

5. Lean on your support network.

Unfortunately, talking about money is still taboo for many Americans. But as an ADHDer, I find that my goals are much easier to meet when I lean on my family, friends and support system.

If you have ADHD, you may be familiar with how working on a project is much easier when someone’s holding you accountable. Use the same principle in your personal finances — pair with people in your life who have similar financial priorities. You can swap budgeting tips, share the best deals in your city or even start a savings challenge.

These conversations can be tricky to start, but because I’m more comfortable talking about my situation than I am asking about someone else’s, I’ll ease people into the conversation by asking for advice for myself. For example, I’ve approached friends in the past (typically other ADHDers, who understand my situation) and said something like, “I’ve been struggling with saving more. Do you have any hacks you’re using right now?”

Friends have offered tips on spending less on groceries, saving money on books and other helpful advice. They wouldn’t have known to mention those tips if I hadn’t asked. More often than not, after I asked, they shared their own struggles with paying down debt and saving more.

Learning to manage your personal finances can feel alienating, especially if you’re trying brand-new methods. But you may be surprised how many people, with ADHD or without, can relate to the struggle to stay focused on your goals. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Bottom line

Whether you have ADHD or not, staying on top of your personal finances isn’t always easy — or as immediately rewarding. These are just a few tips that work for me, but you might find a different approach works better for your brain. There’s no one way to approach your personal finances. Learn what works best for you, and use those skills to write your own budgeting rulebook.