ADHD and Spending Money

Saving with Impulse Issues is Tough

My husband and I are opposites when it comes to money. Surprisingly enough, HE'S THE SPENDER!!! Expensive hobbies and nice cars are things that cost us thousands per year. I typically invade Pinterest and don't actually pull the trigger on buying things... unless it's home decor... Even then, the thrift stores and "great deals" can add up. Fast. $5 a day is $60 a month! Ouch!

The Breaking Point

Before we had kids, I was trying to make the whole "animals are babies" thing work. We had 2 cats and one german shepherd puppy in an 800sqft apartment... Yeah... Too much to handle. We reached our breaking point when we noticed the puppy was having medical issues and we had to give him up. (They were a lovely family with 2 acres of fenced land and two other shepherds that loved dogs. We were sent lots of pictures showing how happy he was.) We were a little broken. If we couldn't take care of an animal, and kids were important to us, how could we move forward?

That Book My Parents Gave Us...

Yeah. The finance book my parents gave us on our wedding day... The Dave Ramsay book... We pulled it out and started slow. We didn't read it cover to cover, but we did find the income ratios in the back of the book. When we compared our expenses to what we were making, we realized that "zero budget" does not mean assign every dollar you own on a different bill. We traded in the used Audi that was a "good deal" for a much cheaper car and started to work on our debts. At this point, I was fully on board, but hubby, master of the finances and the spender, was only partway there.

More Problems

We had freed up more money, but hubby didn't want to have tons of savings just sitting around, and although we were putting more money toward bills, we weren't sacrificing in lifestyle. At this stage, we were better. We bought a house. We had a son. And we were stable. Perfect! Right?

We had a HUGE bump in the road when we decided to move internationally. Hubby applied for the job and we moved... 2 months later. We sold the house, use the money to pay off the debts, and set aside cash for our renting deposit. Two years later we were living the high life and still not saving enough. We also paid for a trip to Disneyland on a credit card... With flights from Germany... I wasn't involved in finances still, so when I asked "are you sure we can afford this?" And hubby said yes, I believed him. It's not his fault, he just didn't want to save up and we WERE making a lot more money. His thought was we'd be able to pay off the trip quickly. But we didn't. We ate the debt. And then when we had to move out for hubby's mental health (He was a military contractor and they were having him work 12 hour nights, 7 days a week, for 2-3 months at a time AND we had a newborn.)

Actually Getting Better

We had to borrow $10k from my parents. I was so upset with myself that I was so blind to everything going on with our money and my ADHD was out of control. The stress of dealing with G's preschool that viewed ADHD as coming from abuse, living in a country where you don't speak the language, and having a newborn with zero support was debilitating. When we came back to the US we started living and breathing everything Dave Ramsay. My son knows his name, people. My 4-year-old was involved in getting out of debt.

What Did We Change?

With ADHD, staying "gazelle intense" was pretty much impossible for us until we found ways to get our mental health in check. It meant therapy, meds, and lots of free activities that could keep us busy and away from expensive hobbies. We lost weight by doing better eating and joining a gym.

Staying Busy

Since we had lived in Florida at the time we found out that Bush Gardens had a yearly pass that was the cost of one daily ticket. You just had to pay for parking. No blackout dates. We spent a lot of our holidays and "I'm bored" weekends doing that which saved a lot of money. We looked for free tours and anything else we could get our hands on. Did you know Disneyworld did free character sing-alongs (before COVID, unsure of current activities) on their campground resort every weekend? A gym has childcare and cost us less than $50 a month for both kids, AND they have a hot-tub. I made a rule that the hot-tub was a reward, so if I was on the treadmill for 10 minutes I could go sit in it.

Better Eating

Our local grocery store had meal kits with recipe cards on them. Everything was pre-measured and there was so much less to think about when cooking. It reduced the stress of eating at home and changed our eating-out habits dramatically. We lost a ton of weight and were able to keep up with the kids better.

Where Are We Now?

We still have debt, but we've paid off close to $100k so far and are on track to be debt-free by the end of this year. We have monthly "dream meetings" to remind us what we're doing and why buying 15 bird decor items or computer parts this month isn't a priority. Or tools. This month's expensive hubby hobby is tools... But what I will say, is having our money set up in a much better place has made my symptoms WAY better. It's made hubby and I much better parents to our kids. The stress of money is painful, but even as a stay-at-home mom, I've had a valuable role to play in our family getting on track.