Money problems and ADHD? Here’s a financial therapist’s advice

If you haven’t heard of financial therapy before reading this, don’t worry. It’s new for us, too. 

But when a past Hyperfocus guest told us to look up Dr. Christine Hargrove, we listened, and were so curious we had to get her on the show. Fortunately, she was game to share her expertise with us and our listeners. 

She kindly answered our basic questions (what is financial therapy, really?) and some of the trickier ones, like how to manage finances with a partner when one of you has ADHD and the other doesn’t. 

Listen or watch now for a truly enlightening episode. 

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at hyperfocus@understood.org.

• Impulse buying, negative bank balances, and the ADHD tax (Paulette Perhach’s story)

• Podcast: ADHD and impulsive spending  

(02:41) What is financial therapy? 

(10:15) How can I get better at managing money with a partner? 

(20:43) What’s your best advice on ADHD and money? 

Rae: So first, I want to ask you, I don't always ask our guests this, but could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Because what you do is fascinating. 

Christine: Yes, so I'm Christine Hargrove, and I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. And I also do financial therapy. Much of the time when I'm doing financial therapy, I mean, we really dig into the numbers. Like it's not, it's not treating a mental health disorder. It's like, we don't know how to talk about money. We don't know how to think about money, we have a lot of, there's a lot financial shame, especially with ADHD, a lot of confusion about like, so I have ADHD, and I struggle with finances, which is pretty typical for ADHDers. So, what do I do? 

Rae: Yeah.

Christine: What do I need to do differently? And that's where it's not just financial psychology, which is where you're kind of diagnosing people like, "Oh, well, here's what you're doing wrong." But it's more like, so how do I change? So, that's why it's called financial therapy, because it's about the change process of your relationship with money, your behavior with money, and how you talk about it and think about it in relation to other people and make life decisions together. 

Rae: If we had the cash to open this episode with the Pink Floyd song "Money," we'd just use that for the intro, but we do not. Thoughts, however, are free, and I'm betting just saying the name got it stuck in your head, so you're welcome. See, we're cross-cutting already. I'm always asking our guests, who should we talk to? What's something no one knows about? And Ari Tuckman, who, by the way, was great on our dopamine episode, you should check it out, instantly said, "Oh, you need to talk to Christine Hargrove. She does financial therapy for people with ADHD." Financial therapy for people with ADHD. We were intrigued and a little skeptical. 

People with ADHD are notoriously bad with money. It's something that causes us endless grief. The late bill, the impulsive purchase that we'll probably forget to return, even if we don't like it. The deeper things, wrecked credit, lost jobs, the toll it can take on relationships, all these mistakes that are so hard to stop making and are so hard to fix. So, the idea that there was a smart person on there specifically focused on ADHD and finances was pretty appealing, if it worked. So, we called Dr. Christine Hargrove, and she gamely agreed to come on and explain what she does and why it can be so life-changing for people with ADHD. 

This week on "Hyperfocus," talking money with Dr. Christine Hargrove. 

Can you tell me a little bit about like, what does a financial therapy session look like? 

Christine: I mean, I always have the disclaimer. Every financial therapist kind of does things a little differently. Most of them don't specialize in ADHD. And I know that that colors the way that I do it. I'm very interested in making sure that things feel accessible, that things feel, any changes that we're working on feel sustainable and realistic. So, when I do financial therapy, most of the time, I really do that under like a coaching umbrella because that's what it is. I'm not diagnosing or treating a mental health disorder with financial therapy. 

So, I'll share at least a few of the things that I like to do. I will typically, I mean, of course, I'm starting to get to know my clients, understand what their goals are, what their pain points are, like what are we trying to overcome. I especially when I have ADHD clients, I really like to understand so of the seven executive functions that are all sort of affected by ADHD, but like which ones are the biggest sources of pain, are the gaps, so sort of I'm assessing in that way because it's not just about try harder, use a calendar. That's like, that's stuff in the wrong, it's just not that trying harder doesn't matter, it's that using a calendar doesn't matter. 

But I want to make sure that if we're going to take the time to suggest an intervention to work on a new behavior we're trying to do, like, is this really going to make a difference? Right? 

Rae: Yeah. 

Christine: I do a lot of financial genograms. And that's where we kind of map out your family tree. And with like circles and squares, all these like symbols, it looks like if you're looking at like a football playbook, and then we start marking on it. So, a typical genogram is a way that family therapists,or people who think from that lens they map out these relationships, the family history, because patterns tend to transmit.

Rae: I learned about those in grad school.

Christine: Yes.

Rae: I have a counseling degree, and I had never thought of applying it to how you would manage money, because of course it makes sense that what you've seen your family structure do would have a big influence on how you manage your own finances, how you interact with them, how feel about them. 

Christine: Yes. And sometimes in that we can catch some gender dynamics. And it depends. Every family is a little different, but there are some things that I will tend to look for. We include what occupations did different people do. Sometimes they changed careers. How old were you when that happened? Did you witness a financial transformation or some financial trauma? A major event that like sort of forever altered the way that you understand money and your relationship to it? And we also get into sort of what we call like moneygrams. 

So, these like distilled meanings of money that we pick up in childhood based on something that we saw, maybe some something somebody said, that we've just kind of given outsized importance. And sometimes we use it as like a rule of thumb. Sometimes it is like, you may believe that it's never OK to bring up "I'd like to be paying for this" because you were taught you don't initiate conversations about money because of something that you saw. 

Rae: So, a moneygram is something where it's like, it's maybe kind of like a moray or a way of thinking about things that you absorbed from your life that may or may not be actually helpful. Like, you know,  "We don't talk about money." Or, like, "Getting a lot of something is better than getting one thing you keep forever." I don't know, I'm making things up, but. 

Christine: No, that's perfect. Because it's like, so there's full on like meanings of money, messages about money. But a moneygram was a little more like a telegram. Like it's distilled really, really sharply, and there's a lot of stuff missing. So, by the time you're on the other end of that moneygram, when you grow up as an adult, and you're still like, you've probably made sense of the moneygram in a whole other than it was originally meant. 

Rae: Ok. What are some common challenges for people with ADHD with money? I think for myself, my issue is probably common for people with inattentive ADHD, which is that I lose a lot of things and I also am bad at remembering things like putting the cap on the toothpaste or not misplacing something that I like. 

Christine: So a lot of the research is basically like the TLDRs that like having ADHD makes your finances harder, makes it harder to earn more money, makes it harder to manage your money well, and it makes it hard to save money. You're more likely to have career changes, to have lost productivity. If you have, and then if you add on that you, if you're a parent, you might have kids with ADHD. And so you're gonna be missing more work. So there's like, there's a real. Effect on your income that we see. In terms of managing money, so paying bills on time is a real problem. 

Having poorer credit scores, which by the way, are not a result of like some major single event, the poorest credit scores are generally a bunch of like very small late or missed payments. Like $300 or less. 

Rae: Yeah, I’m quite familiar with those. 

Christine: Yeah, it's all those little things, death by a thousand. 

Rae: They add up. 

Christine: There's also more difficulty with considering financial information and like processing what's really relevant and then making a decision. The funny thing is the research, I love this research, is that making a decision for somebody else about finances, the ADHDers were not worse than the rest of the population. But when they were asked the same questions about, then what would you do? Way worse.

Rae: Help me understand that a little, because that's fascinating and odd. 

Christine: Yeah, I read that and I was like, this checks out. I actually think this checks out because this is not a matter of not knowing what to do. But when you're asked, OK, so what do you, how would you handle this? You're also thinking about like, well, like I'm not probably not gonna do that or like I am gonna miss that or it, and it is so much more stressful. So with the ADHD brain, we have. We have sort of velcro for negative memories and Teflon for positive memories. Like it is just so much harder to remember good things and it's so much easier to remember negative things. 

Now that's true for everybody, but it's worse when you have ADHD. And some of my dissertation research had to do with financial self-efficacy and couple self- efficacy. And that's like, so self-efficacy is this concept, not of just self-confidence. But, how, do I believe that I can do the tasks that are necessary to achieve this goal? 

Rae: On your own, managing money with ADHD can be a challenge. But once you introduce a partner into the mix, things can go a few different ways. Sometimes, Christine explained, things get simpler. The person whose brain is better suited to the money management type tasks simply picks up the slack. Other times, things gets more complicated. Maybe your partner's frustrated. Why didn't you just pay the bill? How is it this hard for you to file your taxes on time? Or you both have ADHD and everyone's understanding but no one's getting the rent paid on time. 

Or saying, I don't think we actually can afford that impulsive, expensive dinner. This can lead to tension, fights, even breakups or divorce. And sure, managing money as a couple can be hard no matter who you are, but if one or both partners have ADHD, things get much harder. That's where Christine comes in. 

Christine: I think taking care of your emotional, preparing for your emotional needs is important. And that's where, especially with couples, I definitely wouldn't start by being like, let's do taxes together, and then later we'll work on financial communication. Knowing your past pattern of how you emotionally experience financial situations, challenges, tasks. 

So. For some people, they get into something like this, they haven't thought through it, and next thing you know, it's like seven hours later, they haven't eaten, they haven’t gone to the bathroom, and they are like, they feel like crazy and numb at the end, and then the next time, of course you don't want to go do taxes because like on some level, that was physically demanding, that was, I mean, you just left it all out on the field when you did that, you didn't have the ability to regulate. 

Stop, take a break. So if you know that that's your pattern, making plans for doing it in limited amounts of time, making sure you have snacks, making sure you have like mandatory breaks where you stand up. There are other times where someone has a very avoidant relationship with their money. And like the minute that they sit down to look at it, their mind goes to 12 different things that they would much rather be thinking about. And it feels like almost like to the opposite magnets experience where it's like you almost can't seem to just look at it. And in that case, like having being like. 

What I need to do is not make sure and take a break because I'm really good at taking a break. What I need do is figure out a way to just learn to sit with this, even if I'm not necessarily making progress, but just to deal with, OK, I need a stop. I want to stop the avoidance. So I'm just going to tolerate. So when I talk about the work about work and thinking about what is this going to be like being different from the work, that includes like. This is where it's the financial therapy part. Like it's not just about the numbers and about getting the taxes done. It's about doing it in a sustainable way that because you have to do it next year. 

Rae: Yeah. 

Christine: Right? Learning your patterns, your emotions. Do you need to make yourself take a snack break? 

Rae: A lot of it's self-awareness. It sounds like, awareness of ADHD and how it affects you, awareness of where maybe you start to want to do that magnet repulsion thing, where, you know, it feels like you have to kind of work on some self-knowledge in order to be able to understand what needs to happen next. 

Christine: Yes.

Rae: I want to ask you to sort of go back to the couple thing, though, because I feel like no couple I know is like, we are great with money as a couple. Not that they're all having a terrible time, but it's a very often experienced problem, and we know that ADHD impacts relationships in all sorts of ways. And, I would imagine financially that's a big piece of what comes up in couples, especially married couples or partnered couples or people who live together who are doing any type of joint financial thing. 

You know, and like, cause it's one thing to be like, I don't really like the way you spend money or don't spend money. But if it's shared, I would imagine that's more challenging. What are some of the most common issues you hear from ADHD couples who come to you for financial therapy? 

Christine: What a dynamic that I see, and this is on the individual level, but then it affects the couple and it affects it, especially if they're both ADHD, which is I tend to see a dichotomized reaction to money. So either impulsive spending, we're all over the place. Like it's just money is very slippery and there's stress, but like, that's how we do it. I also see... I have to live on $5 a day or less or else. 

Rae: So it's extremes. 

Christine: Yes, yeah. So there's this very polarized dichotomy of like money is just kind of flowing. It's like water, it's just like in and out. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. Like it's hard to hold track. And then like I have to add like I'm gonna turn this into a diamond with the strength of a grip. And both of those I mean, they come out of, both of those come out of real places of pain and lack of self trust. Neither one is comfortable.

Rae: No, and I can understand both because I feel like a lot of ADHD things are, like for me, it's cleaning, like either my house is spotless and if I let one thing go wrong, like it's just the house of cards tumbles and it's chaos or it is chaos. And I'm like, oh, this is how we live. It can be a very polarized experience of things that are hard. 

Christine: Yes. And so money, same thing. Something that I think is misunderstood is in a typical couple, if there is someone who is mismanaging their money, they don't really tell the truth, they're not open about it, then people start bringing up the financial infidelity concept. 

Rae: What’s that? 

Christine: Uh, it's intentional hiding of. it's sort of intentional hiding of money, misspending a money, betrayal. It is a financial betrayal. 

Rae: Having financial issues, but you're hiding it from your partner. 

Christine: When I work with couples with ADHD, I don't see the intentionality, when at least many of the couples I've worked with where they are like, oh, I forgot to tell you and then I meant to tell, and then, I thought you'd be mad. So I was gonna fix it, but then I fixed it, but it made it worse. So there's this kind of like domino of I didn't, I wasn't trying to betray, like I wish that I had been open. But I was afraid I would be judged. I was afraid that you would be disappointed. There was a fear as opposed to sort of malicious or selfish, it was, and then this thing kind of got away from me, so. 

Rae: Yeah, the ADHD snowball thing. I feel like the word that comes to mind when you talk about this is something that is like so key to a lot of the ADHD experience was just shame. Feeling a lot of shame and sort of trying to like just put your arms up like, nope, don't look behind me. It's gonna be fine. I'll figure it out. 

Christine: Figure it out later. I think, I think that, again, I see this individually, but I really see it play out in couples. Money seems to be like the final step in feeling like a grown adult. 

Rae: Oh, yeah, I can see that. Absolutely. 

Christine: And so often, I mean, the way that we typically do our finances the way we are taught to think about money, if at all, and then Like the. The different platforms, the different approaches. Like you do your monthly and like, there are so many systematic issues with the ways that we typically do money. They're very neuro-typical centered. And then we don't have a lot of well-known alternatives. So that's part of what I spend a lot of time working on is like there are, there are some other ways to do it, but we, when the neuro-typical approaches don't work for us, we feel like. 

This is my secret shame, this is my imposter. I'm not really a grownup. 

Rae: Yes. 

Christine: Even if I'm like 75, I still feel like I'm a little kid. And I should be ashamed of myself for not getting this together. 

Rae: That's so. So accurate to me, because when you see the things, they're like, well, this is what's there, and it seems to work for the majority of people, and I am now the one of these things that is not like the others that can't do it. And that's a very shameful experience. And when there's a consequence, especially a financial consequence, to not being able to do the neuro-typically sort of geared things, you know, unless you've got really strong advocacy skills, and even then, like, the instinct is to hide and to feel bad. 

Christine: Yeah. And sometimes I see that play out in a couple relationship with even if neither partner wants it to be like that, it can feel like a parent-child dynamic. 

Rae: Oh god yeah. I can totally see that. 

Christine: Nobody likes that. It's not good for either partner. And it also, you feel really, really stuck as to like, so how do we not do this? Because there's that, I mean, it's an invisible barrier, but like, if you really don't have another approach for handling your finances that makes sense for the way that your brain processes your world, how exactly are you supposed to be an equal partner? Yeah, yes. Like that's not realistic. 

Rae: Before I let Christine go, there was one more thing I wanted to get from her. Actionable advice. Because the first things she told me, while helpful, were a little bit squishy. Learn from your past mistakes and assume positive intent for your past self. When you do make a mistake, be kind to yourself. In a sense, understand yourself, forgive yourself. And while those are great pieces of advice, I wanted something more tangible, both as the host of a mental health podcast and as a person with ADHD who frankly could use the help. So I dug deeper and I asked Christine to talk about the nuts and bolts of it all. 

Christine: So, first, you gotta know your categories of spending and you have to have those be streamlined. We tend to make them way too detailed and it does not help.

Rae: Here's an example of categories of spending. 

Christine: Uh, groceries would be a good one. Sometimes people will do groceries and bundle that with food. That's fine. Too detailed would be like subscriptions for entertainment, subscriptions for car wash, subscriptions for internet. 

Rae: Don't get in the weeds. So when you write down your spending categories for a person with ADHD, is that a way of giving yourself a visual map of where does your money actually go? Sometimes I feel like mine just evaporates. 

Christine: Yes, so write down categories of what you spend money on and then you need to estimate an extra 15%. It is better if you do that when you first estimating it, doing on an annual basis, not on a monthly basis, because you're more likely to be accurate if you estimate on an annual basis. You'll still be slightly off, it doesn't matter. It's just thinking about, its prospective memory, thinking about your future self. Because when you're trying to make financial decisions, we tend to focus on any decision that is clear and we avoid things that are ambiguous. 

And so adding those categories of spending adds a little more clarity to where does my money go? 

Rae: And I imagine for people with an ADHD brain, having something really concrete that you can say like, OK, I get it, I can actually see it, is a very helpful thing. And I love the 15% extra thing, because I know we talk a lot about the ADHD tax, sort of like the extra money you pay just for having ADHD, and I'm not even talking about the money you pay for treatment and medication and et cetera, but just the things that, like I said, I lose a lot of things, I gotta buy them again. That 15%, does that cover the ADHD tax? 

Christine: It kind of depends on, it's always your mileage may vary. I think that what that does is it covers misestimations decently. So when you set up like I just did this morning with some clients, income on one side, sources of income, expenses on the other, and your retirement investments and emergency savings, those stay as expenses that you're contributing to. Do not move them over to the, like... potential sources of income.

Rae: Oh, so don't use for your trip. Yeah. Like, that's a common problem for a lot of us, I would imagine, where it's like, I someday will have this fabulous job. So don't spend against something that's not there. 

Christine: Yes, and don't think of your savings as like backup income. 

Rae: Yes, that is a very important piece, I could see. 

Christine: And it's not a bad thing if you have like some savings, but emergency. 

Rae: Yes. That's good advice I feel like for everybody. 

Christine: This is true. 

Rae: Like savings are almost like, it's helpful to forget they are even there. So, Apps, what's your feeling on apps? Because I feel, I use like a savings app that takes money out of my account for me. I rely heavily on like my, like things that I've found, tools that are not so much neurotypical tools, things that feel like they work with my brain to help me understand sort of like those realities like you're talking about of my finances that I basically need an outside brain to do the stuff that my ADHD brain either can't or won't do. Does that work for a lot of your clients? And if so, do you have recommendations? 

Christine: Automatic savings can be helpful. Definitely automatic investments. So being able to invest regularly and often in a, you know, most of the time they would say just a basic fund that tracks the index. There's a lot of different approaches. You can look into that on your own, but investing early and often is better than investing late huge amounts and it's easier. 

So having some of those things be automated is excellent. When I, so I presented at the international conference on ADHD this last year, and I came up with an acronym that sort of wrote itself while I was sitting there, just thinking about like, what, what do people want to know? What do I want to share? The acronym is SAVER, and this is how I evaluate and help people evaluate if an app or approach will work for them. And the key thing is that each one of these things might be slightly different depending on your own personality, what you value. 

So the first one is, is this streamlined, right? Like, does it have a bazillion steps? Is it super complicated? Is it accessible? Do I have the information that I need when I need it without having to like sit there for two hours and go back and redo everything? So is it accessible? Is it visual? Does it present information in a visual way? Is it engaging? That includes the emotional component, not limited to, but is there activity? 

An example of engaging that like isn't that motivating for me, but is motivating for most people with ADHD is like gamification.OK. And then is it realistic? Like, are the numbers realistic? Because if they're not realistic, I'm just gonna avoid the whole thing. Is it realistic to expect me to do this? Is it realistic for me to meet for an hour every week with my partner? Like, heck no, we don't have a life for that. Right? So like. Is this approach realistic? 

So for me, streamlined, if it is, that is probably the number one. If this is not a streamlined system, I’m out.

Rae: So if you don't find the thing that works for your brain, it's basically the same as not finding anything at all. I feel that way about almost every ADHD tool, a planner, a calendar, an app, whatever it is, if it's not something I'm actually gonna use, what's the point? It's just something I probably wasted money on, honestly. All right, I know we're over time, but I have one question for you that I would just, I'm just really curious about. What is the best financial advice as a woman with ADHD that you've ever gotten? 

Christine: Ooh.That’s a good question. I think I- I would say the best budget is something you can follow on your worst day, not your best day. 

Rae: That's great. 

Christine: In the financial field, and I understand where it's coming from, like CFPs, AFCs, like what the problem is that they have to present to you the financially optimal approach. But if that only works when like the sun, moon, and stars align, that's not actually the best plan for you. The best plan, the best budget, the best approach is something that even when the chips are down and you feel you're overwhelmed with shame, you can't believe that happened, you lost your job. If you have an approach to your finances that you're willing to at least sit with, and Just do something, that’s a win.

Rae: Christine Hargrove, thank you so much for coming on. This has been deeply fascinating and honestly, something that I will be using for the rest of my life. I think I'm gonna hold on to SAVER forever and pass it around. Thank you so for coming, that was so cool. 

Christine: Sure, thank you, thank you for having me. 

Rae: Thanks for listening to this episode of Hyperfocus. If you have any questions or ideas for future topics, write me an email or send a voice memo to hyperfocus@understood.org. 

Hyperfocus is made by me, Rae Jacobson and Cody Nelson. Our video producer is Calvin Knie. Our music comes from Blue Dot Sessions. Ash Beecher is our supervising producer. Brianna Berry is our production director and Neil Drumming is our editorial director. 

This show is brought to you by understood.org. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, you can donate at understood.org/give.