Adult ADD and Money

CNNMoney.com Financial Health Calculator

The end of summer is a good time for people to focus on improving their finances. One of the key problems with improving your finances is understanding your strengths and weaknesses. The Financial Health Calculator from CNNMoney.com is a good basic tool to help you understand what areas of your finances that you need to focus on. It took me a few minutes to enter all of my information and I ended up with a B+ grade, the calculator also showed me a couple of areas that I need to focus on for the fall.

Esteemed Lending Services

Esteemed Lending Services   - Is a fictional company that was set up by the Federal Trade Commission (US) in order to show people how easy it is to fall victim to someone who is trying to scam you by posing as a lender. When you visit Esteemed Lending Services  you will find that the website looks like a legitimate lender. Websites like Esteemed Lending Services  are set up to scam people who are often desperate for a loan.

According to the website there are several red flags that may tip you off that a potential lender is trying to scam you.

• "A lender who isn’t interested in your credit history."
  
• "Fees that are not disclosed clearly or prominently."
  
• "A loan that is offered by phone." 
• "A lender who uses a copy-cat or 'wanna-be name.' "
• "A lender who is not registered in your state."
  
• "A lender who asks you to wire money or pay a particular person."

If you even run into even one of these red-flags, avoid the potential scammer at all costs.

Clearing distractions one by one

This morning I canceled my account with Mint.com. Mint.com is a website where you can track the activity on all of your loans, bank accounts, and credit cards in one place for free. Using this data Mint.com makes it easy to set up a budget and to track spending. While I liked tracking all of my accounts from one site, I never used the budgeting and other features of Mint.com.

I was still getting weekly reminders to log into my account, even though I had not used Mint.com for at least several months. Canceling my account with Mint eliminated one small distraction each week. But these distractions can add up quickly and will distract you from working on other chores or tasks that need to be done. Eliminating unnecessary distractions, by focusing on eliminating one distraction at a time is easy to do and will allow you to spend more of your time on things that will actually be a benefit to you. 

Taxes and Anxiety

There is just less than five weeks to file your taxes in the United States. The very though of filing your taxes can bring up a lot of stress and anxiety, especially in adults with ADD. There is no way that I know to completely avoid tax stress, but there are ways to greatly reduce the anxiety that tax preparation can cause. Hiring a tax professional to help you to prepare you taxes can save you from unnecessary financial anxiety. There are also many affordable computer programs that will help you step by step to prepare you own taxes. With these programs you will be able to file your taxes on-line, saving you the couple of steps of having to put the tax forms in a envelope, putting a stamp on the envelope, and dropping it in a mailbox. One way to reduce tax stress that is often overlooked is just having someone you trust to support you and to hold you accountable for the steps needed to finish filing your taxes.

Six weeks left to file your taxes

There is only six weeks left to file your taxes in the United States. My wife recently wrote a post titled : Time to think about Taxes. The first thing I thought was that I need to think about filing our taxes. The next thing I thought about was making sure that I had all of my receipts, tax forms and bank statements. There have been times when after struggling to find all of my important documents; I ended up not being able to find a bank statement. If you are missing a document it is a lot easier to get a copy with six weeks left to file your taxes then it is when you have only a week. 

If you haven't filed your taxes yet, take a little bit of time now to make sure you have everything you need to file. It could save you a lot of stress and unneeded aggravation. 

Bank of Mom and Dad Review

The Bank of Mom and Dad is a show that each week features a different young women who is having financial issues. The parents of the young women move in with their child and work to teach them lessons to help turn around their finances. The show also features Farnoosh Torabi, a financial expert who helps by giving budget and financial advice. So far I have watched two episodes of The Bank of Mom and Dad and I have been really surprised. The show is not only entertaining, but shows realistic advice and lessons for people who are having financial issues.

The show deals with many issues that young adults with ADD often deal with. So far the episodes have dealt with issues such as organization, overspending, and unpaid parking tickets. It is a good watch for people who have their own financial issues and for parents who want to help their adult children with financial issues. It offers good advice in a very entertaining and friendly way.   

( for more information about the show see "Trust Me" over the "Bank of Mom and Dad" ) 

"Trust Me" over the "Bank of Mom and Dad"

With our struggling economy many more adult children feel like they are being forced to ask their parents for financial help. On September 30th, a new reality show called "Bank of Mom and Dad" will air on the SoapNet cable network. Each week the show will deal a 20 something women who parents will move in with them and with the help of a financial expert, will try to help their daughter to adjust their financial lifestyle to what they can actually afford. The concept seems somewhat interesting, but I have severe doubts on whether a reality show is the right format to help someone reform their finances. Perhaps I will review the show later next week.

If you are interested in truly helping your young adult children achieve financial independence try reading Trust Me , by Kenneth Kaye Ph.D. with Nick Kaye. It is an excellent guide for parents of young adult children who are struggling with their finances. It deals not only with setting up a plan to get back your child on the road to financial success, but deals with the emotional and trust issues that financial struggles can bring. Nick Kaye also does an excellent job of giving parents the insights of a young adult who has had financial struggles. (I know that I related to many of his struggles)

Trust Me also deals with several interesting topics, including how to deal with your children if they have to move back in, basic financial education, tax issues, and information dealing with trust funds and partnerships. The chapter that I found the most interesting was Attention Money Disorder which deals with how Learning Disorders affects financial management skills. The chapter was inspired by how Nick’s Attention Deficit Disorder affected his financial choices, and by the research that Dr. Kaye did on ADD in order to have a better understanding on how it affected his son. This chapter gives great tips and insights, and I plan on reviewing it more in depth in a later post.

I am a big fan of reality television and I will watch the Bank of Mom and Dad, but if you really want information to help you deal with the parent/child financial relationship I strongly recommend that you purchase Trust Me.       

$ 696 Billion on Hospital care

According to a special report in the September 23rd edition of USA today, 31% of the United States health care spending in 2007 was for hospital care. The total dollars spent on hospital care in 2007 was 696 billion dollars.

Why is this number so important, it is 1 and a half times the amount that the US spent on physcian and clinical services. It is my opinion that if the US were able to find a way to focus more of our spending on preventative measures ( clinical and physcian services) we would have a more efficent system and healthier citizens.

I am not in favor of a full government system like several other countries. But there has to be measures made to promote preventative care. Insurance reform is critical, but the private sector is also working on ways to encourage preventative care. For example drug stores are setting up clinics that are being used for cheaper and conveinent preventatative care.

This is critical for everyone but especially for adults with ADD who are concerned about their money. Got any ideas to improve our system, let me know what you think.

Making Your Own Rules

I have been looking at my library of books about personal finance, I find it overwhelming and I do not have adult ADHD. You can have any rules that you want when it comes to managing finances as long it cover a few core areas.

1. Education - There are so many people who are looking to take advantage of the under-informed. Education is key in figuring out what you want and more importantly why you want it   

2. General Philosophy- Do you like to play it safe, or are you a risk taker? Are you a saver or a spender? How much do you give to others? There are no right answers to these questions, but you need to know yourphilosophy on money, so you can understand and defend to yourself your financial decisions.

3. Goals - One you have established your philosophy, its important to set some goals that are in line with your money management philosophy

4. Systems - It is important to have a game plan with managing daily spending, paying bills, and making day to day decisions.

5.Analysis - Are your goals, systems, and philosophy working for you. What are you doing well and where do you need to change.

The 1 Month Budget

As someone who does not have ADHD, I love to plan. There have been times in my life, where I have prepared and tried to stick to budgets that have been for a year or longer. Honestly I think my budget plan was pretty sound, and logically there should have been no reason why I could not stick to it.

What I did not take into account was the physical, emotional, and mental barriers that we encounter every day. My budget did not take into account that things broke, and had to be repaired or replaced. I did not take into account times when I just wanted to do something, or get something. I did not deal well when I was unable to stick to my budget, and therefore gave myself permission to continue to make bad financial decisions because I had already blown my plan for the year.

I still continue to do longer term financial planning when it comes to certain financial goals. My current budget however is for just a month. I know there are a lot of people reading this, that just shiver when I mention the term budget, however having a one month budget is simple enough to prepare, and is an important tool to help you prioritize your spending. If you prepare your budget on a spread sheet, it is something that should only take a couple of minutes each month to update. The most important aspect of the one month budget for me is that it forces me to focus on the present. It is harder for me to push off paying down a loan, or putting less money in my savings, because I can't put if off on my budget. It is important for allof us to keep the majority of our financial focus on the present, it is where all of the action takes place that will help shape our financial future.