Adult ADD and Money

27 more shopping days until Christmas.

It all started before Halloween when I went to a local retail store and several aisle were already stocked with decorations, wrapping paper, and holiday cards. It got worse a week or two later when I flipped through the channels on my radio to discover that two radio stations were already playing holiday music 24 hours a day.In mid November I almost lost it when on my way home for work I noticed that several houses were fully decked out for the holidays. All of this combined with the barrage of advertisements and news stories dealing with the Black Friday sales has caused me to avoid dealing with my holiday shopping list all together. 

Luckily for me I recognize that this is a typical pattern for me. In prior years I would feed into my negative feelings about the commercialization of the holidays and avoid buying presents until the last possible moment. For the next couple of weeks I am going to do my best to avoid media that is related to the holidays. This will allow me to limit the time I focus on negative thoughts, and hopefully into a better frame of mind I need to get into the holiday spirit when the time is right for me.  

 

 

 

Ways for an ADD adult to waste money during the holidays (2005 Repost)

Here is a fun repost from 2005:

1. Buying and serving 10 vegetables with your holiday meal, because all of them looked good at the store and you couldn't pick just 3.

2. Buying extra gifts because you missed the deadline for holiday orders and the gifts that you ordered for people should show up on the 27th.

3. Buying extra gifts because you forgot where you hid some of your gifts.

4. Not cashing grandma's check because you threw it away with all of the other "junk mail" on your table.

5. Buying extra gifts because you desperately wanted to play with the video game that you bought for your nephew.

If you can answer yes to less than three of the questions above consider it a successful holiday season.

1. Buying and serving 10 vegetables with your holiday meal, because all of them looked good at the store and you couldn't pick just 3.

2. Buying extra gifts because you missed the deadline for holiday orders and the gifts that you ordered for people should show up on the 27th.

3. Buying extra gifts because you forgot where you hid some of your gifts.

4. Not cashing grandma's check because you threw it away with all of the other "junk mail" on your table.

5. Buying extra gifts because you desperately wanted to play with the video game that you bought for your nephew.

If you can answer yes to less than three of the questions above consider it a successful holiday season.

Most Expensive Presents

Let me start this post by stating that I am annoyed. I am annoyed this year that the holiday season has began with full force before Thanksgiving. Radio stations are all ready playing Christmas music 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It seems that every store is having several black friday sales before Thanksgiving. From every angle it seems that I am getting bombarded to begin preparing for and celebrating for the holiday season. The prolonging of the holiday season is also taking an additional toll on adults with ADD who are susceptible to over stimulation and the barrage of extra tasks and decisions the should be made before the end of the year.  

I know that our struggling economy is a major reason for lengthening the holiday season, so in order to help stimulate the economy, and perhaps shorten next years holiday season, may I suggest a couple of presents (found on luxist.com) that you could give a loved one this year.

Most Expensive Bottle of Beer

Most Expensive Christmas Ornament

World's Most Expensive Xmas Gift  (Hint: its only 500 million dollars)

 

None of these gifts are in my holiday budget this year. In fact I think that these gifts are absurd to give to anyone. What I really want to make sure of is that people put the holiday season into its proper perspective. The whole point is to spend time and celebrate with the people you care about. It is not about what people give each other or how much money is spent. I implore everyone to focus on finding ways to reduce financial and social stress during the holiday season.

Holiday Posts

Here is a collection of posts I wrote about ADD Money and The Holidays:

Making Gifts - Every year you say that you are going to make some of your gifts for the holidays, but always go shopping at the last minute to buy gifts for your friends and family. When I think of home made gifts I think back to some of the  Christmas ornaments I made out of clothes pins and Popsicle sticks back in elementary school. I don't think my parents would appreciate these gifts the second time around.

READ MORE >>

Wasting Money - Buying extra gifts because you missed the deadline for holiday orders and the gifts that you ordered for people should show up on the 27th. READ MORE>>

Shopping Tips - Many adults with ADD tend to procrastinate holiday shopping because the whole ordeal can be overwhelming. Here are a couple of shopping tips to help ease your holiday anxiety.

READ MORE>>

Best of: Money and the Holidays

According to an ABC News Article, "Halloween is the third most expensive holiday of the year, right behind Christmas and Valentine's Day." Halloween can be a hazardous time for an ADD adult on a budget. There can be a lot of little expenses that are fueled by sugar and creativity.  READ MORE >>

Under normal circumstance the malls and superstores can be over stimulating for an ADD adult. However during the holiday season everything is more distracting; there are more people shopping, the holiday music always seems louder, there are more choices, and more displays. It is easy to make poor impulsive choices or to get discouraged and not buy anything at all.  READ MORE >>

Fall is in the air, and pretty soon the holiday season is going to creep up on us before we know it.  Now is the time to start planning and preparing (if you haven't already) for anyone to get through the holidays debt free.  I know what that many adults with ADD are still working on sending out last year holiday cards, but by starting out with small habits today you will reduce the holiday anxiety. READ MORE >>

Holiday Leftovers

Since many adults with ADD are still working on sending out last year's holiday cards, I figured I would feature three articles that I wrote last year about dealing with money and the holidays.

Making Gifts

Ways for an ADD adult to waste money during the holidays

Money and the Holidays

Trick($$) or Treat

According to an ABC News Article, "Halloween is the third most expensive holiday of the year, right behind Christmas and Valentine's Day." Halloween can be a hazardous time for an ADD adult on a budget. There can be a lot of little expenses that are fueled by sugar and creativity. Set a spending limit for all of your Halloween Spending before you start buying costumes, decorations,tickets to events, and of course candy. Setting a Halloween budget will allow you to use their creative abilities to find low costs ways to make costumes and to decorate for the holiday

While it is important for adults with ADD to plan for an event like Halloween. Don't buy your Halloween candy until a couple of days before Halloween. That candy is too much of a temptation for someone with impulsive tendencies, the sugar will also affect your sleeping pattern which ADD adults have to monitor very carefully if they desire to stick to a sleeping schedule.

Not sure what you are going to be for Halloween, visit Family Fun, they have 100 costume ideas, including costumes you can make at the last minute for the procrastinators among us.

Revised Version of Original Post on (9/29/05)

Creative Donations

There is an excellent series about creative donations on the Kiplinger website. (I found out about the article by reading the Free Money Finance blog).  Donating items will help you in three ways this time of year.

1.  Donating items will give you a good feeling knowing that you are helping others.

2. Donating items before the end of the year will help you get a tax deduction on your 2005 Federal Taxes.

3. Donating items will help you to reduce you clutter, which is very helpful to any adult with ADD.

http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/columns/starting/archive/2005/st1201.htm

Holiday Shopping Tips for ADD adults

Yikes!

There are only 8 shopping days left till Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah. Many adults with ADD tend to procrastinate holiday shopping because the whole ordeal can be overwhelming. Here are a couple of shopping tips to help ease your holiday anxiety.

1. Try to avoid the malls and the gigantic superstores.

Under normal circumstance the malls and superstores can be over stimulating for an ADD adult. However during the holiday season everything is more distracting; there are more people shopping, the holiday music always seems louder, there are more choices, and more displays. It is easy to make poor impulsive choices or to get discouraged and not buy anything at all. A lot of adults with ADD like to go to smaller stores that they are familiar with in order to reduce the stimulation, I find that in the smaller stores there are more unique choices to help you better fit your gift with the person that your are giving it to. Other ADD adults like to shop on-line to avoid the hassle and to find unique gifts.

2.  Divide you shopping into smaller trips.

Going on a shopping trip trying to buy fifteen presents can be overwhelming.  But if you go out on a shopping trip to get three to five presents you are more likely to achieve your goal.  To make it easier you shopping trips can have a theme, like one shopping trip can be to just get presents for your nephews & nieces. This will also limit the amount of stores that you have to choose from each trip.

Ways for an ADD adult to waste money during the holidays

1. Buying and serving 10 vegetables with your holiday meal, because all of them looked good at the store and you couldn't pick just 3.

2. Buying extra gifts because you missed the deadline for holiday orders and the gifts that you ordered for people should show up on the 27th.

3. Buying extra gifts because you forgot where you hid some of your gifts.

4. Not cashing grandma's check because you threw it away with all of the other "junk mail" on your table.

5. Buying extra gifts because you desperately wanted to play with the video game that you bought for your nephew.

If you can answer yes to less than three of the questions above consider it a successful holiday season.