Adult ADD and Money

Ed McMahon's House Foreclosure

During the last month, Ed McMahon and his wife Pamela's foreclosure proceedings have been discussed a lot in the press lately. A lot of times when you hear about a celebrity dealing with financial problems you think about an immature young celebrity who spends all of  their money because they don't appreciate just how rare it is to earn the amount of money they are making. The Mcmahon's plight hits home because you do not expect a successful couple who has been married for 18 years to have to deal with foreclosure.

There are a couple of key issues that the McMahon's foreclosure bring up that adults with ADD are more likely to face. One issue is communicating with your spouse about financial issues. A lot of times in a relationship the partner without ADD manages the money. When using this system it is a good idea to make sure that you agree with your partner to discuss any major financial decisions.  It is also a good idea to occasionally review all checking, savings, investments, and credit card bills so that you understand and agree with the decisions your partner makes.  It is important that you have input to how your money is being spent as well as knowing why your partner sets spending limits.

There has been news reports that the McMahon's owe $750,000 on their American Express Card, it seems likely that their are spending issues that might be compulsive shopping. Sometimes it is easier to accept our own problems if we see other people dealing with the same issue. It can be more difficult to accept that you have a problem with shopping addiction, because compared with other addictions, there is not much of a negative stigma realted to a shopping addiction. While Adults with ADD may make poor shopping and money management decisions due to their impulsive nature, compulsive shopping reaches a deeper level. Here are some warning signals that you might have a compulsive shopping problem:

1. Buying items that you do not need or items that you have never used.

2. Hiding purchases from family and friends or lying about how much money you spent.

3. Borrowing or stealing money from others to shop.

4. Your purchases are causing issues with work or home life.

If any of these warning signs apply to you or you feel you might have an issue with compulsive shopping please go the the debtors anonymous web site below.

http://www.debtorsanonymous.org/

If you would like to learn more about this subject please visit the following websites:

http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/hints/shop.html

http://www.addvance.com/add_friendly/newsletter/april05.html

http://www.starbreezes.com/11/shopping.html

Repost: 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.

Art made with currency

Need a fancy way to save your money so that you will not be tempted to spend it. Why not take your money and make it into a scuplture. You will need to think long and hard before destroying something you made with the money you want spend. Here are a few websites that show different things that you can make from currency. My favorite is the money map of the world at Alan Hume's blog.

Money Art: Art made with currency (Alan Hume) 

Cool Money Art (Indian Pad)

Alternating Currency

Best of : Celebrity Money Issues

Within the last month there was a big rumor going around that Lindsay Lohan had a shopping addiction: "Lindsay Lohan has hit back at claims she is undergoing hypnotherapy to overcome a $1 million a year shopping addiction." Sometimes it is easier to accept our own problems if we see other people dealing with the same issue. It can be more difficult to accept that you have a problem with shopping addiction, because compared with other addictions, there is not much of a negative stigma realted to a shopping addiction. While Adults with ADD may make poor shopping and money management decisions due to their impulsive nature, compulsive shopping reaches a deeper level. Here are some warning signals that you might have a compulsive shopping problem: READ MORE >>

According to the The Motley Fool MC Hammer had a net worth of 30 million dollars at the high point of his career. There were several factors that cause MC Hammer to declare bankruptcy. READ MORE >>

Britney Spears is worrying about how to live on a net worth of $11 million dollars. I bet that most people think that the can live out there lives pretty comfortably on 11 million. The problem here is not the amount of money that she has to live on, but it is more about perception. Often we are not aware of how many of our choices are affected by how we view the world. READ MORE >>

Money Levitation

In my feeble attempt to avoid spending the money I have in my pocket, I have scoured the World Wide Web for alternative uses of money besides spending it. During my intensive research I have found out how to make it appear like you are burning money, dollar bill origami, and many questionable uses for the penny. The lateset stupid use of money is the video above. The video is of someone called Mr. Extra crumbling up a bill and levitating it up and bring it back down. Hope you enjoy it.

Dollar Bill Origami

Are you trying to save some money by not taking art classes, but still need a creative outlet. Get one or more of your dollar bills and try using origami to make it into something cool. There are some great examples of what you can do with a dollar bill over at Financial Hack. I like the dollar bill Cobra, but I think many people will like the guitar player.

The Tortoise and The Hare

This fable about The Tortoise and The Hare is filled with pot shots against people with ADD. The Hare has several common ADD characteristics including losing focus, moving at a fast pace, sleeping issues, and poor time management. The Tortoise is the conformist, "slow, plodding, and focused on the goal". In the end the steady Tortoise wins the race because the faster Hare lost his focus and went to sleep. Stories like this help to discourage ADD adults, and in some small way it encourages failure.

The Hare was so upset that he lost the race to the Tortoise that he challenged him to a race the next week. The Hare was intensely focused on beating the Tortoise so he decided to get some help with this race. The Hare made sure that the race was scheduled later in the day so that he would not be tired and could be better focused. The Hare also made sure that he had friends through out the race to remind him what direction he needed to go and to make sure he completed the race. On race day The Hare out ran the Tortoise and won the race very easily, after the Tortoise crossed the finish line The Hare asked The Tortoise why he didn't just stop after knowing he lost the race. The Tortoise replied that his goal wasn't to win the race it was to cross the finish line.

What are the morals of this story:

Even if you lose a race because you fell asleep, you can always prepare to win the next race.

Sometimes our abilities aren't enough to win the race, we need to learn from and/or get help from others to help us win.

Having a good strategy will give you an advantage in order to compete in any race.

Money to Burn

Want to make your friends think you have money to burn. If you are like most of us, you do not use dollar bills to light your fancy cigars. However with this simple experiment I found at Chemistry @ about.com you can make it appear that you are burning a dollar bill with out actually burning the money. The secret is soaking the money in a solution of 50% alcohol and 50% water. When you light the bill on fire the alcohol is actually burning and because the bill is wet the bill never catches fire. This is better use of money than most of the stuff I actually spend money on.

Want to make your friends think you have money to burn. If you are like most of us, you do not use dollar bills to light your fancy cigars. However with this simple experiment I found at Chemistry @ about.com you can make it appear that you are burning a dollar bill with out actually burning the money. The secret is soaking the money in a solution of 50% alcohol and 50% water. When you light the bill on fire the alcohol is actually burning and because the bill is wet the bill never catches fire. This is better use of money than most of the stuff I actually spend money on.

Broke and clean Britney

   Here is an interesting excerpt that I found on the Boston Herald website.

According to London’s The Daily Star, the pop princess is reportedly “scared to death” to face her financial situation - she’s blown through $21 million of her $32 million fortune in the past two years. “She has to concentrate on staying sober,” says a concerned family friend, “but she can’t do that if she has to worry about going broke - which is exactly what she thinks will happen.”

Britney Spears is worrying about how to live on a net worth of $11 million dollars. I bet that most people think that the can live out there lives pretty comfortably on 11 million. The problem here is not the amount of money that she has to live on, but it is more about perception. Often we are not aware of how many of our choices are affected by how we view the world. There are many things that we view as necessities that are really choices we are making.  Sometime the choices are things that we have become accustomed to, and sometime the choices have to do with how we want to be perceived by our peers. Are there necessities in your life that are really optional.?

Most ADD adults have had  issues with self-perception and self esteem at some point in their life. Eileen Bailey at ADD/ADHD @ about.com has great tips on improving self esteem.

Wallpaper Your Room with dollars bills

If you wanted to wall paper a room with 320 sq ft of coverable walls in dollar bills, it would cost $3,072.00.