Women are increasingly being diagnosed with ADHD later in life – it happened to me when I was 56 years old.
We often self-describe as being bad with money, forgetful or disorganised. In fact, the so-called ADHD “tax” imposes a signiicant cost on women, even those who are very financially literate. A YouGov study revealed that people with ADHD incur an average yearly loss of £1,600.
Missed deadlines, forgotten cancellations and auto-renewals can quietly add up. What was previously seen as being “busy” or “distracted” can result in significant and avoidable losses.
Even money experts can fall foul. For example, I’ve signed up for free trials and then paid for months of unwanted subscriptions. This was due to not reading properly or replying to a no-reply email address. I even had two insurance policies out at one time!
I also lost out on hundreds of pounds from one TikTok video by not reading the small print about creator payments: it was 59.5 seconds long, half a second short of the minimum.
I only realised this all stemmed from the same place when ADHD visibility, money and business coach Maddy Alexander-Grout explained it.
Maddy well knows the financial cost of having ADHD.
She struggled with spending addiction from the age of 15, when her parents divorced. At university she signed up for six credit cards, two overdrafts, two loans, with a total credit limit of £65,000. She then started to ignore the monthly statements.
“One day there was a bailiff at my door and although my mum was cross about the debt and wasn’t going to bail me out, she helped with a budgeting plan and I paid off all the debts in five years,” she told The Independent.
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She, like so many others, has often been hit by the “tax”, including four parking tickets in a week because she forgot to update her temporary parking permit, double booking or forgetting gigs for which she bought tickets, buying 24 pairs of the same earrings, and more.
It even affected her first business, which was doing well until Covid hit – but she could not claim on insurance because she had not properly understood the cover provided.
ADHD-ers often run out of time to shop around for renewals. Clinical psychologist and host of Psychology Actually, Dr Marianne Trent, says that this is because future consequences can feel psychologically distant and, as a result to avoid that, people may use what is termed affective forecasting.
She explains “This is where we assume that we will have more time or patience for a job or task in future, which of course when the time comes usually isn’t true!”
Dr Trent added: “Those with ADHD can often suffer ‘decision fatigue’, where the overwhelm of too many choices or not having the necessary structure or strategies mean people are more likely to disengage.”
She said: “Impulsivity and an optimism bias for ‘earning more next month’ or ‘definitely planning on remembering to come back and search for a better deal’ can mean that someone with ADHD pays higher fees for longer.”
Maddy focuses on helping neurodivergents with their money. Her book Mad About Money shares tips around navigating life and finances with ADHD.
“I know what it’s like to struggle,” she says. “I’ve been through spending addiction, homelessness, job losses and an ADHD diagnosis that finally made sense of the chaos.”
Maddy recommends small, sustainable changes:
- Set as many alarms as you need
- Use a Fitbit or phone for reminders
- Sticky notes
- Make things visual
- Put important bills/fines on a clear desk in your eyeline, so you can’t ignore them
- Use “pots” on your online bank account
- Have a dedicated “what if” fund and make automatic weekly transfers into that pot
As for herself, Maddy has pots for everything – “including an ice cream fund”. She also advises not being hard on yourself. Dr Trent concurs: “It’s really important to try and reduce any shame you might feel for being affected in this way. It can be helpful to chunk things into much smaller ones.
“So, if searching for insurance quotes fills you with dread or panic, don’t aim to do it all in one sitting – maybe just have a 5 minute hunt to start with then set a phone or email reminder to support you actually coming back to finish the job.
“You can build in rewards for yourself, too, when you tick off mundane tasks.”
For those of us diagnosed late, it explains a lot.
We aren’t “bad with money” or continually forgetting things, our brains are just overwhelmed and overstimulated!
It’s important for us to reframe how we see our so-called mistakes. And it shows that recognising a pattern and putting measures in place to help is the first step to reducing that ADHD tax bill.
Helen Dewdney is consumer expert The Complaining Cow.
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