Everyone has an opinion about whether cash or card works better for managing money. Cash makes you more mindful. Cards are convenient. But here's the truth: there isn't one right answer for everyone with ADHD.
Tax season just ended, and you're sitting there with this nagging feeling that you missed stuff. Expenses you could have written off but didn't because you forgot to track them, or didn't realize they counted, or the receipts are somewhere in the void between your email and that drawer in your kitchen.
If you have ADHD and run a business, this probably feels painfully familiar. You're not trying to commit tax fraud. You're just trying to remember what you spent money on last year while your brain was running in seventeen different directions.
Let's talk about the five business expenses ADHD entrepreneurs most commonly miss, why we miss them, and how to actually catch them going forward without needing a perfect tracking system.
There's a pile of papers on your kitchen counter, maybe your coffee table, or maybe both. Bills you've already paid but never did anything with, bank statements you might need someday, receipts for things you can't remember buying. And let's not even get started on your electronic documents and the hot mess of them in your inbox. Every time you look at them, you feel guilt and overwhelm. You know you should deal with it, but where do you even start? If you're dealing with ADHD, financial document organization can feel impossible. In this post, I'm breaking down why financial paperwork piles up, what you actually need to keep and for how long, my To Be Filed folder system that works incredibly well for ADHD brains, creating a simple filing system, and how to tackle your current pile without losing your mind.
Retirement feels like an impossible goal to achieve but also a concept from another planet. You're supposed to care deeply about a version of yourself that lives thirty or forty years in the future and put some of your today money away for this person who doesn't feel real? When you can't always remember what you had for breakfast, planning for a theoretical future feels absurd. So you don't. You tell yourself you'll start next year or when you make more money. But Future You is coming whether you prepare or not. In this post, I'm breaking down why retirement planning feels impossible with ADHD, how to make Future You feel real, starting with tiny amounts that feel easy, automating everything, understanding your retirement account options in Canada and the US, and why this is an act of self-respect not deprivation.
You're setting up pricing or planning a price increase and hit the question: should you let clients pay in installments or require full payment upfront? Payment plans could make your services more accessible, but you've heard horror stories about clients who stop paying halfway through or after you've delivered everything. If you're an ADHD entrepreneur, this decision feels even more complicated because managing payment plans requires organization, follow-up, and tracking. All things your brain finds challenging. In this post, I'm breaking down the pros and cons of offering payment plans for both you and your clients, how to protect yourself including not delivering in full until you're paid, using services that pay you upfront while clients pay installments, requiring significant deposits, and being selective about who gets payment plans.
You promise yourself this is the month you'll finally save money. You transfer $200 to savings, feeling like you've got your shit together. And then three days later, you're transferring it back because something came up. If you have ADHD, this pattern probably feels painfully familiar. You want to save, you know you should save, but every dollar that goes into savings somehow finds its way back out. When you have ADHD, the future doesn't feel real, delayed gratification is torture, and every dollar feels urgent right now. But it IS possible to save and even get dopamine from saving. In this post, I'm breaking down why saving money feels impossible with ADHD and the systems that actually help: one clear goal you care about, making saving create dopamine, moving money you saved by not spending, automation, and starting so small it feels easy.
