Trick yourself into better money habits

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Ellyce Fulmore (1:00)

I had a really hard time sticking to a budget and I was frustrated because I was like, I know exactly what I quote unquote should be doing and it's just not clicking.

Reema Khrais (1:11)

I'm Reema Grace and welcome to This Is Uncomfortable. There's no shortage of personal finance advice out there, but I've noticed that most of it, it assumes that the problem is discipline. That, you know, if we just make the perfect spreadsheet, track every dollar and stick to the plan, we'll finally have our financial lives in order.

That advice doesn't work for everyone, especially if you're going through mental health challenges or your brain just works a little differently. Like a couple years ago, I got diagnosed with ADHD, and so many of my financial habits suddenly made sense. Like how I could spend hours obsessively researching credit cards but then somehow forget to pay my bills, or when I spend hundreds of dollars on a new hobby and then lose interest a month later.

I've heard from so many of y'all who've had similar experiences. And so this week, we're answering your questions about things like impulse purchases, money anxiety, and budgets that never seem to stick. And I'm chatting about all of that with someone who helps people create money systems their brains will actually use. My guest is Ellyce Fulmore. She's a neurodivergent financial educator and author of Keeping Finance Personal. Ellyce, welcome to the show.

Ellyce Fulmore (2:18)

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Reema Khrais (2:21)

So, you are very open about being neurodivergent, right? In what ways has that impacted how you manage your money?

Ellyce Fulmore (2:29)

Oh my gosh, so many ways, pretty much every way. I feel like one of the biggest things with ADHD is the impact that it has to your executive function. So, if you're not familiar, that is a set of cognitive processes in your brain that are basically responsible for planning, organizing, follow through. Think of it as the manager of your brain. So, with ADHD, you struggle with your executive function. So, all of those things are impacted.

Reema Khrais (2:56)

And I know you got diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago, right? And so, once you got that diagnosis, were there things that just clicked and you were like, oh, that's why I did that thing for so long?

Ellyce Fulmore (3:06)

Yes, so many things. I, at that point, had actually started my business. So, I was talking about financial things online. And I would consider myself, at that point, to have been very financially literate. But there were still areas of my finances that I was struggling with a lot. Like, with impulsive spending was a big one. I had a really hard time sticking to a budget. And I was frustrated because I was like, I know exactly what I, quote unquote, should be doing. You know the things. Yeah, and it's just not, it's not clicking. And so, when I did get that diagnosis and I started doing research into ADHD and how it affects your brain and your behaviors and all these other things, everything made sense. Like, it was like, oh, okay, this is exactly why I was struggling with these aspects of my finances because I actually have physiological differences in my brain that explain those things.

Reema Khrais (3:57)

Let's get into some questions from our listeners.

Our producer, Alice Wilder, is here to read them aloud. Welcome, welcome, Alice.

Alice Wilder (4:04)

Hello. I'm excited to read y'all these questions. Are you ready for the first one?

It comes from Marketplace Maven.

I have ADHD and struggle with impulse spending, but these purchases aren't from Amazon or Target. They're from places like Facebook Marketplace. I feel like these purchases are somehow better because they're secondhand, and I feel more urgency to spend because I'm afraid an item will be claimed by somebody else if I don't act quickly. But then I often return home with my new item and realize within hours that I didn't really need it in the first place. I'm stuck feeling guilty for having spent that money and now have to deal with reselling or donating that item. Do I just need to delete Facebook?