Having ADHD Co$T$ Money

[Fabulous]

When I attended the Totally ADD conference in Toronto, I got a handout called “36 Strategies for Success”. I LOVE this freakin’ list and do my best to live by it. (Is it on the website somewhere? I looked but didn’t see it.) One of the new tips or strategies I recently added to my “36 Strategies” list, which has grown beyond 36 of course, is to accept the cost of ADHD. I used to get all irate and beat myself up when I messed up in a way that cost me money (e.g., parking tickets, or car repairs, or taxi fare because I was too late for a meeting to take transit). Now when that happens I have a 2-part strategy. 1) I mentally classify the expense as coming out of the “ADHD budget”. I have accepted that there will be a certain amount that I spend every year, just because I have ADHD and I will mess up. And 2) I try to put a strategy in place (or reinforce an existing strategy) that will help me avoid the mistake again.

It is still a bummer when the “ADHD costs” happen, but thinking about it this way has helped me accept it and have some peace of mind — and probably also helps reduce how much my ADHD costs me too. (I did think of tracking these expenditures but then thought better of it.)

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[allan wallace]

That’s an interesting concept an ‘ADHD’ budget! I hadn’t thought about it before! I seem to to have been paying off fines all of my life! Parking fines, speeding fines, minor bureaucratic infractions etc. My drivers licence has been suspended because I was too late to apply for an extension to pay plan. I’m still paying of in excess of $1,000 in fines from another state. The inflexibility of bureaucracy infuriates me…yikes, you’ve just reminded me of some car things that need attending to…*sigh*…how much of a relief would it be to have a magical fairy that attended to all of those dreaded boring bureaucratic things that are so damned vexatious?

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[Fabulous]

Oh, the fairies! How I wish for fairies! I would have a tax fairy, a banking fairy, an insurance fairy, … a dishes fairy …

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[Wgreen]

Interesting post.

I certainly wish I could recoup all the money I’ve spent as a consequence of my “distractedness” — auto accidents, emergency room visits, etc. And I wish I could I could somehow capture all the income I’ve left on the table by not being able to get things done…

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[Fabulous]

Hi Wgreen, It’s painful to think about! The parking tickets, the taxis when late, the lost revenue, the high car insurance rates, the car repairs for bumps and scratches, the missed appointment fees… And those are just the tangibles. There are the bigger costs of lost opportunities as you mentioned, but let’s not go there.

And then there are the therapeutic costs in the form of drug coverage, coaching, etc.

It really adds up. Too bad we don’t get a tax break or something for having ADHD.

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[Fabulous]

Hi Wgreen, It’s painful to think about! The parking tickets, the taxis when late, the lost revenue, the high car insurance rates, the car repairs for bumps and scratches, the missed appointment fees… And those are just the tangibles. There are the bigger costs of lost opportunities as you mentioned, but let’s not go there.

And then there are the therapeutic costs in the form of drug coverage, coaching, etc.

It really adds up. Too bad we don’t get a tax break or something for having ADHD.

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[allan wallace]

Well, my licence was re-instated yesterday! I sorted it out by going in to one of those boring bureaucratic temples….what annoyed me was that it wasn’t even my fault that I was fined! It was my wife that had incurred the speeding fine from one of those camera thingy’s. Anyway, the minor car bingles are interesting….maybe I was lucky there. Over the years i’ve only had a couple of very minor bingles, and I reckon it’s because I learnt a very valuable lesson a week or two after getting my licence.

I should have been killed. I was on a highway, driving at 120 kph without a seatbelt on daydreaming out of the window as I watched lambs frolicking…I looked around and noticed that I was a nano-second from impact into stationary vehicles. I only had time to let go of the steering wheel and throw my hands over my eyes as I scrunched myself into a ball on the driver’s seat….after what seemed like an eternity I peered through my fingers to find the car stationary in the emergency lane pointing the same way as the traffic! It was nothing short of a miracle, and after composing myself I drove to work! Over the years I’ve tried to figure out how I managed to not hit a single car in 4 lanes of heavy traffic after letting go of the wheel and taking my foot off the pedals! It defies the the laws of physics how my car ended up where it did! 120 clicks to zero of it’s own accord whilst the driver was in a ball on the driver’s seat! It was a miracle! From that day on I realised how important it was to concentrate whilst driving, and I’ve not had a ‘near-miss’ since….*makes the sign of the cross*…. 😯

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[Anonymous]

Huh! An ADHD budget! THAT is a novel idea!

I have never once in my life gone to renew my vehicle registration without finding out that it is suspended due to unpaid parking tickets (seriously, does anyone really feed the meters, or is it just me that thinks of them as decoration?). To un-suspended a registration due to ‘administrative flags’ costs hundreds of dollars. On top of the hundreds of dollars that I have to pay just to renew the registration.

Instead of paying a few $10 parking tickets.

Or better yet, paying a few dollars to the meters.

I’m going to have to try this whole ‘be prepared because you know it’s coming’ idea that you’re proposing because, well, I know it’s coming…

I’m pretty sure I’m only a month or two overdue for my vehicle emissions inspection. So far that’s only a $45 late fee

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[allan wallace]

Is it the same for borrowing DVD’s from the shops? We seem to pay fines almost time that we borrow some, and same with all bills for that matter….nothing is ever paid on the due date. I had a girlfriend once who was so organised it used to fascinate and intrigue me! I used to watch her intently with an almost reverential awe….sadly, it wasn’t reciprocated, and she used to wonder how I’d managed to get through life with such a careless disregard for what she called ‘propriety’…. 🙄

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[Patte Rosebank]

It’s not just ADHD, but ALL illnesses and disabilities that are hugely expensive.

How much does it cost for a pair of glasses, if you need bifocals, as a result of the early-onset presbyopia (inability to shift vision between near & far) that is a side-effect of antidepressant medications?

How much does it cost for the custom-fit orthotics you need to replace every year, because your feet are completely flat, and you can’t walk or stand without pain?

How much do you spend on prescriptions for your antidepressants, ADD meds, and diabetes meds? (High blood sugar and type-2 diabetes are additional side-effects of antidepressant medications.)

How much less do you earn than the average person who doesn’t have your medical conditions? (People with disabilities, including ADHD, are often unemployed, or underemployed.)

It costs money to have a chronic illness. But money is the one thing we don’t have enough of!

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[Anonymous]

Ugh! We seem to be forever forking out money for medical expenses and ADHD related costs. We have three ADHDers in our house, so replacing lost items, paying fines, buying medications, forking out for doctors appointments, paying for organisational aids, and dealing with damage caused by carelessness just chews up the money. It seems to be the ADHD that chews up more money than anything else. The other medical issues don’t help (glasses, contacts, cholesterol meds, RLS meds), but they don’t seem to be as costly in total.

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[Fabulous]

Yup, every medical condition costs money. But it’s a lot easier to accept paying for bad eyesight or medication than to accept the cost of the paid-for purchases that I mistakenly left at the store last week.

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[Scattybird]

It’s the unexpected nature of the costs too – no, I don’t mean unexpected because they’re not (!) – I mean random and irregular – maybe we should justy put aside something in the ADD kitty each month to accommodate these costs.

Like yesterday, I locked my keys in my car – all my keys, along with my phone. So I had to walk to someone’s house to use their phone to call the breakdown service, to ring the vets to cancel an appointment and use their loo (never again will I think I’ll wait because I’ll be home in 10 minutes)!

So, I had to give the breakdown chap a tip, buy a present for the kindly houseowner, reorganise the vets appointment which is now going to eat into my work time on Monday, and apologise to my niece who won’t get her birthday present on time because I missed the last postal service of the day. But what really annoys me is it would have been on time – for once! All trivial, but still lost time and unnecessary expense and frustration.

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[Fabulous]

Scattybird, that is a bad day. I hope you went home and put your feet up. What strikes me about your post is how responsible you are — you look after your pet’s health, you send a birthday gift to your niece, you make and strive to keep appointments, you tip, you formally acknowledge those who help you out. Imagine how much money we would save if we were as irresponsible as people seem to think we are!

It’s true that these untimely expenses make it hard to plan. I wish I was disciplined enough to put ADHD money aside in advance. I don’t think it will ever happen though, because it would require discipline but also mostly for the same reason I don’t track my ADHD costs — it is just too depressing to see the actual numbers involved.

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[Patte Rosebank]

What’s really shocking is how many NON-ADD people have decided that “winning the lottery” is their retirement plan.

They’ll line up overnight to buy the latest electronic gadget or video game (never mind that the one they lined up to buy last year still works beautifully), and put it on their credit card (which is already pretty full of similarly stupid purchases), but they insist they can’t manage to put aside a little money for the future.

If THEY can’t do it, how can WE?

The key is to have a plan.

I spent my whole life spending money before I earned it, and my parents had to bail me out several times. Then, I decided to save up for a trip to England. I began giving myself an allowance from my earnings, and putting the rest into a high-interest savings account that requires a day’s notice of any withdrawals. And I started picking up as many extra shifts as I could at work, and banking the extra money, instead of spending it.

Result: I saved up more than enough for my trip, and had a lovely time.

I also changed the habits of a lifetime—mostly, since I still make some impulse purchases, but nowhere near as many as before. When I got an inheritance from my grandmother, last year, I put it all into a high-interest account, instead of blowing it.

I’m still banking most of what I earn, giving myself a small allowance, and picking up as many extra shifts as I can. It gives me a feeling of being in control, and the security of knowing that I have funds to tide me over in an emergency. That feels a lot better than the momentary thrill of a bunch of impulse purchases!

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