5 ADHD Tips for Overspending
The Last One Will Make You Laugh
1. Handling in-person food shopping
If you prefer to go in-person to shops for food shopping then I would suggest only bringing the amount of money you need for exactly what you need. When you have a spontaneous burst of energy, make a shopping list of everything you want and include a few fun, novelty items that scratch that ADHD itch — if it’s in your budget. I’ve found that if I already have a few items I’m excited to get, then I’m less likely to get distracted into impulsively buying a lot of junk food.
2. Alternatively for an online food shop…
If you do an online food shop, set a soft and hard limit for how much you can spend. The soft limit is for what you would ideally spend but then the hard limit is what you absolutely cannot go over. If you find you’re still going over the hard limit, pick the offending items and roll a dice, or just do eenie meanie minie moe and remove them from the list. Hopefully, the instant dopamine of the little game will give you enough gratification that you won’t even feel bad about deleting them. Also, you could just add the deleted items to a ‘favourites list’ to have the option to buy them at a later time. That is, if you’re able to remember you even have a favourites list because I forget it even exists half the time.
3. For the online clothes shopaholics
Do you have a penchant for online shopping for lots of clothes? One thing that helps me is imagining myself wearing the clothes: yes, it looks good on the model and has a cute pattern but would it suit my body type and flatter me? I think sometimes we get so excited with the novelty of how cute this new item of clothing is that we forget to consider how it would actually look on us and then we’re just left with the burdensome task of returns because it doesn’t look the same way as it did on the model.
Another thing is considering whether it suits your entire look/aesthetic and if you can make outfits from your wardrobe with this new piece of clothing. I would say if you can’t think of at least 3 different outfits you can wear with the item you want to buy then it’s not worth buying it.
A bonus tip: If you’re in the mood of falling down a rabbit hole of online shopping for clothes, you can check the materials of the clothes and check if they’re cost-effective. A lot of companies are now selling polyester clothes at crazy prices which is not at all worth it.
4. For the house gadget hoarders
I’ve been a victim of this one too many times but usually, my brand of ADHD is the I-have-to-become-a-complete-expert-of-any-big-purchase-and-am-left-in-complete-decision-paralysis-for-the-next-3-years-until-I-finally-commit-to-buying-something-that-I’m-not-even-100%-happy-with.
What’s worse is that I’m usually happier with my impulsive buys than the ones I’ve painstakingly researched for triple the time. It’s I-just-bought-a-fun little-thing versus this-item-has-plagued-my-mind-for-years-and-I-just-want-to-buy-something-to-end-this-torment. It's the worst when you’ve done so much research on the item that all your adverts get tailored to it, so you start seeing the item everywhere and it’s like all your electronics are mocking you for not having bought it yet. Sorry, this has quickly dissolved into an ADHD rant so let me just move on to the tips.
So, my main point is similar to the online clothes shopping one. Imagine the gadget in your house. Where would you put it? Do have space for it in your home? Do you already have something in your house that does the same thing? How often would you actually use it? Be honest with yourself on that one.
The prospective dopamine always makes dreamers out of us. We always have all these grand ideas of what we will be like with these new items, but then when we actually receive them, either the dopamine of buying it is gone or it just proves too overwhelming to use in day-to-day life because it has too many steps.
Is it realistically something you could use often? If it’s not, save yourself the hassle of having to deal with a bulky return. I also wouldn’t recommend buying something that would ultimately just end up in storage most of the time because you will 100% forget it exists. And there’s no point in buying something that just takes up space and never gets used.
Life Mottos I Made Up
Either it’s on display or it’s a nay.
No space on the counter, you gotta renounce her.
Is it really a problem solver, or just a dopamine hoarder?
5. I hope this will at least earn me a giggle
The last tip, which is kinda eccentric, is to role-play as someone stingy. So, if you’re having a particularly impulsive day where you just want to buy everything in sight, role-play as someone stingy with an elaborate backstory. Create a character that finds spending money abhorrent and would only buy the very best cost-effective thing. For example, a dragon that lost all its gold/treasure and can’t buy anything unless it’s the most durable and long-lasting to withstand its fire breath. Also, I just think it’d be fun to just walk around stimming and pretending to breathe fire. lol.
All right, that’s the list, I’m not sure how helpful this is because everyone’s ADHD looks different and everyone struggles more or less with different things so this may work for some people and not others but if you have more tips that help you with overspending, please share them in the comments!
