For ten years, I advised hundreds of people on their finances. And I have ADHD. Both taught me the same thing: when you spend on impulse, it’s almost never a question of maths. You can add up. The problem is dopamine and timing.
Why ADHD costs you money
First, there’s impulsivity. Between wanting something and buying it, there are two clicks and a saved card. Your brain doesn’t have time to stop and think.
Then there’s the search for stimulation. Buying something feels good, straight away. When you’re bored, stressed or have just had a bad day, a purchase is a quick, easy hit of dopamine.
There’s also the way an ADHD brain perceives time. It lives mainly in the present. Next month’s you, the one who’ll have to pay the credit card bill, feels like a stranger.
And then there’s everything that costs you money without any of the pleasure: bills paid late, reminder fees, forgotten subscriptions, refunds you never claimed. This is often called the ADHD tax. For many people, it weighs more heavily than the impulse purchases themselves.
The problem isn’t your willpower
Most financial advice assumes that you’ll draw up a budget, stick to it and make good decisions at the right moment. That’s exactly what’s hardest with ADHD. A forty-line budget in a spreadsheet? You’ll abandon it within two weeks. Not because you’re hopeless, but because it requires consistency and repeated decisions.
The right approach is the opposite: cut the number of decisions you have to make to the bare minimum, and add friction wherever your impulsivity costs you.
Five practical fixes
1. Put friction between wanting and buying
Delete the cards saved in your browser and on the sites where you shop most. Turn off one-click buying. Move shopping apps off your home screen. Every extra step gives your brain a few seconds to regain control.
Add a simple rule: any unplanned purchase above a certain amount, say 100 francs, waits 48 hours. You write it down on a list and come back to it two days later. In most cases, the urge has passed.
2. Automate everything you can
On the day your salary comes in, automatic transfers go out to your savings, your third pillar and your fixed bills. What you don’t have to decide, you can’t forget. For bills, eBill and direct debit spare you most reminders.
3. Separate your accounts
One account for bills, with no card. One account for everyday spending, with your card. And savings you can’t get at in two clicks. Instead of following a full budget, you only look at one number: what’s left in your spending account.
4. Look at your money for five minutes a week
Not an hour on Sunday evening. Five minutes, on the same day every week, ideally tied to a habit you already have, like your Monday-morning coffee. You check your balance and your latest spending. That’s it. What’s visible becomes manageable.
5. Work on the emotion, not just the purchase
Next time you buy something on impulse, note down how you were feeling just before. Boredom, stress, a sense of rejection, tiredness. After a few weeks, a pattern almost always emerges. From there, we can look for another way of meeting that need, one that doesn’t involve your bank card.
What we work on in coaching
In my programme, we start by measuring six areas of your life, including your heat-of-the-moment reactions, impulse purchases among them. We put in place the strategies that fit your situation, fine-tune them week after week, and take the same measurement again at the end.
I don’t give financial advice as part of the coaching. We work on how you behave with money, not on your investments. But after ten years in finance, I know just how much more that behaviour weighs than any financial product.