That time we spent a lot of money

In this episode of the "WTH ADHD" podcast, hosts Kelly and Leti discuss the financial challenges associated with ADHD. They share personal experiences of impulsive spending, overspending, and the lack of financial education. Kelly recounts her experience of declaring bankruptcy at 27 due to overspending and the subsequent struggle to rebuild her credit. Leti talks about the impact of the 1994 earthquake on her finances and how she managed to pay off $10,000 in medical bills. They emphasize the importance of financial planning, budgeting, and the need for better financial education for people with ADHD.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Recording the Second Episode
• 2:12 Financial Challenges with ADHD
• 13:22 Learning Financial Responsibility
• 13:36 Impulsive Spending and Digital Apps
• 20:27 Personal Financial Experiences
• 26:44 Debt and Bankruptcy
• 41:24 Rebuilding Financial Health
• 41:42 Overcoming Financial Obstacles

Transcript

Speaker 1  0:00  
Hey, Kelly, yeah, lady, remember the time we spent a lot of money.

Speaker 2  0:22  
You? Good morning. Good morning. Hey. Welcome to episode

Speaker 3  0:34  
two. Take two. Episode Two. Take two of w, T H, ADHD,

Speaker 1  0:42  
pray tell. Why Kelly, are we recording our second episode? Well, ironically

Speaker 2  0:47  
enough, it has to go with today's somewhat theme. Oh,

Unknown Speaker  0:52  
what like we have ADHD or something? Yeah,

Speaker 2  0:56  
we thought we could record a podcast without planning anything

Speaker 1  1:00  
Well, let's skim over the fact that we were extremely tired.

Speaker 2  1:05  
We were we were really, really, like really

Speaker 1  1:09  
running on minus three speed with medication and caffeine, and caffeine, which provided absolutely zero help, nothing whatsoever side effects of fatigue with ADHD can include hyper focus, unfocus, extremely slow speech, blabbering on, making lists that the other person starts feeding out on. I think I listed like, what? Like 13 pieces of clothing, and you were talking like you lost me at tank tops, because we weren't got into closets somehow, which was a bad idea to go into my closet. So

Speaker 2  1:48  
we're learning. We've learned. We've created a somewhat outline, shall we say, of what we're going to tackle today. Sure, I think

Speaker 1  1:59  
I've got one in my head. It's a step well, that's the problem.

Unknown Speaker  2:04  
It's in your head. Nobody else

Speaker 1  2:06  
can see. I have so many things outlined in my head. It's fine. That's the problem.

Speaker 2  2:12  
So you know, today's topic, Hey,

Speaker 1  2:16  
it's me. ADHD

Speaker 2  2:20  
is, of course, money, yes. So

Speaker 1  2:24  
I'd like to go back to the barter system. Can we do that? Because I can make things, and I think I could, you know, survive and make a pretty good

Speaker 2  2:33  
but I think that be almost no, that's still money. Use money, yeah, they just make things. You know, I we did this thing in middle school project, and it was like a school project for seventh grade or eighth grade, and it was all about business. No, but people had to make things. And I don't know if it went very well.

Unknown Speaker  2:56  
I make you a shoe.

Unknown Speaker  2:59  
What was that called?

Speaker 1  3:01  
Oh, people would make things and they're like, no, really great. Nobody wanted it because it

Speaker 2  3:06  
was awful Middle School. Somebody will tell us, somebody will tell us when they hear this, and they'll write it in the comments. Anywho

Speaker 1  3:15  
is this like an American thing in middle school? Yes, yes, yes. Okay, they all

Unknown Speaker  3:19  
did it. Travel fair,

Speaker 1  3:22  
shoot, we made things for the Motherland. Travel. We did not make barter system. We made motherland.

Speaker 2  3:30  
But we use no money, and I don't think it went very well. So we do need money, but us with ADHD, as I have learned, boy oh boy, do we have a problem with money, yeah? So crap for so much of my life.

Speaker 1  3:47  
For me growing up, you know, we would go on these like, you go to the mall and you go, quote, unquote, window shopping, and we spent a lot of time doing that and retail therapy, like that thing as a child, yeah, I hated it because it wasn't me driving the experience. I had to, like, follow someone else, sorting through things, and that was like torture and overstimulating. And I didn't really have money for quite some time. But because those experiences had been there, once I was old enough, I got these things called credit cards. Oh, my God, let me. So when I turned 18, let me I think I got my first credit card, and I also got my first bank account. I can't tell you how many of those stupid pieces of papers I got from the bank that says $25 overdraft fee, because I couldn't remember, you track of doesn't this a balance as much, so much, so much. And I would fill out that little because back then, we had paper tracking for checks you ran a balance, so if you put in. $500

Unknown Speaker  5:01  
then you'd go minus $2.22

Speaker 1  5:04  
for the coffee you got, and then you'd make little entries. And at the end of the day, you'd have to remember what your day looked like, unless you carried it with you, and you did it all the time. But who does that at 18? Well, people who have their shit together. I guess

Speaker 2  5:18  
I worked at a bank in college. So at the very beginning of my financial career, I always balanced my checkbook, always, always because I worked at a bank, but that didn't mean I didn't overspend, like cray. Cray, the second I started making money. Me and my friend Nicole would go to freaking what's it called in the mall, the store, store in the mall, not the limited, limited, yeah, but whatever. And we would spend $400

Speaker 1  5:59  
Casual Corner, no, not Casual Corner shit. Oh, tell me some 80s star names. Oh,

Speaker 2  6:06  
my God, I can't remember. But anyways, like I gotten serious financial I worked for a woman who only bought top of the line shoes clothes. Tell me more about top of the line. She She used to take me shopping with her, and she used to show me what real, what is, what the what is I bought my first is it Dolce and Gabbana dress?

Unknown Speaker  6:36  
Tell me more.

Unknown Speaker  6:37  
But I also declared bankruptcy at 27

Speaker 1  6:41  
Wow. Yeah. So for me, I think, you know, looking back too, like there's no class on balancing bank accounts, there's no financial planning, we have to teach our we had, like cooking class, like home act, but it didn't really, I mean, maybe for some kids that do, I want to magnet, you know, gift of people who are supposed to, know, like, weird things, not not life things, but one specific weird thing, right? I'm not saying magnet. People are weird. I was a weird thing, learning a weird thing.

Unknown Speaker  7:20  
But um, anywho.

Speaker 1  7:22  
So you come out and all of a sudden you're kind of like a free range chicken. You're out roaming, and you don't have the skills to do these things, if you came from a family who didn't know how to who also might have had ADHD, who did not run their lives in a way where they would have modeled these things for you. You know, I'm still floored at some of the financial responsibility my daughter's father is showing them by, you know, this is how you open a bank account. This is how you do things. Because I love it. I think it's great. And I wish, I wish I would have had it. I just had a bank account because I would get checks, and I need to put them somewhere, right?

Unknown Speaker  8:08  
So financial planning, because

Speaker 2  8:10  
I haven't taught her very well thus far, and I need to start now, because she gets so much money from outside people. Yeah, want her to be wise with it. I feel

Speaker 1  8:23  
like this generation is actually careful with money. I agree. They value it. They value spending an experience over things. And I love that non materialistic Absolutely agree feel. But then again, they haven't really quite, you know, opened towards that, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  8:50  
I lost your audio. What

Unknown Speaker  8:53  
happened to your microphone? Did you switch it off?

Unknown Speaker  8:57  
I might have, yeah, okay, there's

Speaker 1  8:59  
a button there. Oh, and when you fidget on it, it turns your microphone, I know,

Speaker 2  9:03  
but I fidget. I can't help it. So

Speaker 1  9:08  
with Well, let's go forward. Well, let's go forward. So a lot of spending earning, spending earning, spending earning, spending not saving. Like I wasn't taught about savings, and then in Eastern Europe under communism, you just kind of scraped so no one really had money, and

Speaker 2  9:26  
that parents didn't save. And that's I totally, I totally get it. They couldn't. They were paycheck to paycheck people. I absolutely understand that. And I, I, I've been a paycheck to paycheck person too, when I really shouldn't be. And

Speaker 1  9:40  
that's the thing, I think, when you have that ADHD component, you end up with these financial issues that lead to paycheck to paycheck, or overdrafts and things exactly. And let's say one of those things could be, oh, I don't know, impulsivity, right? Right? Right executive function helps you regulate your impulsive thoughts and urges, and it a lot of impossibility comes from the intrusive thought, but also the dysregulation that you may experience. And shopping is a great way to help channel that, or opening a bakery, or opening a bakery having had an amazing thought, right, and not had any prior experience, slash nothing, slash nothing. Business Training, none. So hey, Kelly, let's open a bakery with no business plan, none. Do you remember when we opened our bank account and the guy asked us if we had a business plan? I was sweating tennis.

Unknown Speaker  10:49  
Enos,

Unknown Speaker  10:51  
yeah. Anus needs your wet. Enos. Enos,

Speaker 1  10:56  
we I was sweating in that chair. He's looking at me, and I'm like, Oh, yes, of course, we have a business plan. And to me, my business plan was, you make these things, you then open up a space, you rent it, and then you make those things there, and you sell them. That sounds like a great plan, and that was the business plan. Oh, and you made coffee too. And

Unknown Speaker  11:22  
guess what? They gave us an account.

Unknown Speaker  11:26  
They gave us a credit card,

Speaker 1  11:30  
and then we threw a whole bunch of money at it, like because we're so hyper focused, and it felt so

Speaker 2  11:36  
great. My God, we redid, we got a space, we redecorated, had a decorator come in, Rudy. Rudy came in and redecorated our freaking store like wallpaper. We had the best wallpaper around

Speaker 1  11:51  
the sample wallpaper that we cut out of the it was so beautiful to look at on this one wall.

Speaker 2  12:00  
We we really did it nice. And it

Speaker 1  12:04  
wasn't that we didn't have a good idea that was solid. It wasn't that we didn't know how to execute the things that would that we we didn't know how to ex, well, no, I'm talking about the product portion, right? So the business idea was solid. The product was solid. Our ability to manage that would have been really solid had we had some training and had gone through what people do in terms of writing business plans and things like that. But I will say if someone would have told me that the only way to start that business was to write a business plan. I would have been like, nope, I'll do something else. Because the idea of organizing all that at that time is very overwhelming. I'm definitely about it so overwhelming. So what did we do?

Speaker 1  12:58  
Did you read did you write a business plan. Kelly, no, I didn't write a business plan. We didn't ever write a business plan. Oh, we actually, no, we started. We did because we got, we had the thought that we should expand, or no, to join with another company to distribute, I think, and they wanted to, like, look at a business plan or something like, it came up, and I did start, like, I got a binder, and I started, like, breaking apart what needs to go into business plan. What was the bank guys? Was it? I

Speaker 2  13:36  
don't Kelly, I don't remember, and I don't want to remember, because literally, what we did was just spend and then spend some more and then spend some more, very reactive spending, very reactive spending. We didn't understand inventory. We didn't understand any of that. And as we got into the business, we had to learn all of that, because our accountant told us we needed to do that, right?

Speaker 1  14:03  
So then we get into this other caveat of ADHD, so impulsivity combined with the executive function disorder of not being able to plan well,

Speaker 2  14:17  
it's literally like we, honest to God, had every good intention it, but we didn't listen to anybody, and we just did it. And if, if we, if we had that money again and had the opportunity, we could make a go of it after we now know what research, yeah, no, I think we could. Yeah, we had no idea, and that's okay, and that's fine, and that's whatever. No regrets. I'm okay being a cautionary tale, absolutely a cautionary tale,

Speaker 1  14:51  
as as messed up, some as messed up as the executive function can be with ADHD the flip side. That incredible creative surge the outside of the box thinking there is no box for an ADHD person. The unique problem solving approaches are the things that drive it drives innovation when this world needs it, right, but however,

Speaker 2  15:21  
not at the expense of a shitload of money,

Speaker 1  15:25  
right? And I think this is another reason there should be more recognition for ADHD, so that in school we can support all our young thinkers agree, may exhibit signs or may not exhibit signs. Who, but who do have ADHD or other undiagnosed neurodivergent

Unknown Speaker  15:45  
Brains, brains of the word, then

Unknown Speaker  15:48  
let's move into our personal experiences.

Speaker 1  15:51  
Yeah, talk about how effective. Let's talk about it.

Speaker 2  15:55  
Let's talk about some more impulsive, let's say, spending what what I used to spend on my little games on my phone, I would spend $1.99 here, $1.99 there, 299 there. It's only $1.99

Unknown Speaker  16:16  
but if you times it by 20, it's $40

Unknown Speaker  16:22  
$50 $60

Speaker 2  16:25  
that's one thing I had to literally, like in my hand, I had to think through and go, Kelly, you do not need to buy those 25 diamonds. You literally an app purchase. Don't need to buy those 25 you go for those in app purchases, and it's like a really hard thing for me not to do it

Speaker 1  16:45  
well. And you know, looking at the app industry, they actually really understand the reward mechanism in the brain, and they provide enough dopamine pickup where you're staying engaged, and then they drop you a little or put you in a hurdle position just at the peak of that where you need more. Yep, and oh my god, drop it in on you, and they know exactly when that time span is. On average, there's a lot of data, there's a lot of algorithms that work there. That easy. It takes advantage of really works thing, though it really does, and it super works on young minds. And not only does it work on the young minds in terms of spending, but it's taking that attention span that's developing and reducing it by offering rewards just a little earlier than maybe you'd need it chemically in your brain, and it decreases that that attention span to where then that person really needs that quick switch up.

Unknown Speaker  17:55  
I feel like a lot of people are gonna relate to that.

Speaker 2  17:59  
My kid spent $300 on the Kim Kardashian app.

Speaker 1  18:07  
Three how many questions there's a Kim Kardashian app? Let's start with that. Yeah,

Speaker 2  18:12  
that Kim Kardashian makes gajillions. When I say gajillions, I mean gajillions on her app. She's an amazing business woman. I was amazing. I will me 100% the whole family is an incredible enterprise. Amazing. You cannot knock them for that. But my own daughter spent that money, and I thought it was my husband spending money on music. And I kept telling my husband, even his ADHD record collection does that yes, because he's ADHD and likes to buy dollar 99 songs over and over and over again. And I let him, huh, digitally, yeah. And I like to let him have his music. But I was saying, babe, can you please stop spending so much money on music. And he's like, Okay. And then all sudden, these chargers would come through, and I'm like, Babe, stop spending money. And he's like, I'm not spending money. And then that's when we figured out it was my daughter, Oh, him, Kardashian app, buying makeup.

Speaker 1  19:19  
It was animal jam that stuff, ours was Animal Jam. And I think Singing Monsters or something like that. Those were like, but Animal Jam was like, the one that was like, Really, and then it goes to Roblox. So Roblox is a different approach, where you have Roblox bucks correct, which is not money technically, but it is, and the way they offer it to children is to change your skins or the way you look or to access things. And again, it's just building the system of of changing and very small increments what you're doing and making yourself. Look a little special, a little different, which is great, and we all did that on the big scale at the mall, right? You look special Frenchy or whatever. But because they're not outside doing things, they're inside those marketing worlds, still had to reach that audience, and they did that through in app purchases or level up purchases,

Speaker 2  20:21  
but we a lot of the time I would, she would pay me for the robux.

Speaker 1  20:27  
And with that, I feel like they're much more responsible than I ever would have been if I would have had that kind of access as a youth, it would have been like bankruptcy at 12. So

Speaker 2  20:38  
yeah, tell me a personal thing about you, all

Speaker 1  20:42  
right? Well, impulsivity, oh, sure. So I think that you're extremely rich for buying things. And for me, mine was shaped a lot by the immigrant experience, so I'm a cheapskate, over spender. Boy, oh boy, are you look for the deal? And when I find that deal those tags, I feel like I won the lottery that I got a $300 something for $10 I think I'm the shrewdest awesome as buyer. It's like being on a hunt in the the forest and and I, like,

Speaker 2  21:22  
Letty would go and pop tags at all of the salvation armies, and she would come back and bring me shoes. Oh, they had them in your eyes. Yeah, designer time, those are, like, $500 shoes for 20 bucks. Kelly, I it was just I had never met anyone like that in my entire life. Nobody just brought me stuff because they found it at the Salvation Army. Oh, yeah, you did

Unknown Speaker  21:49  
it a lot. And some of them,

Speaker 1  21:52  
some of them had such great designer, beautiful things that people just toss away because they don't like it anymore, and they're in perfect shape where they never wore

Speaker 2  22:02  
it. It's crazy. I can't believe some of the stuff you found. I mean,

Speaker 1  22:06  
just treasure. And so for me, the hard thing now, I would say, is that access has changed. Where before I'd have to go to the thrift store to do it, but now I can shop the San Francisco eBay store, on eBay, and it's the same amazing deal, except it says that the thing's gonna end in four minutes, which is kind of counting down in red. And I could buy that deal, make the bid on it, and then you're not thinking about that shipping fee and things like that. So finding those deals online are really hard. Auction things the resale, right? I like the found object idea. I like not buying something new. Can do it because I'm not. The clothing industry is just such a waste, right? So I like the idea of repurposing someone's throwaways and looking good doing it.

Unknown Speaker  23:10  
Totally agree. But oh my god, you did it so much.

Speaker 1  23:13  
And I'm not saying I'm not doing it now. I have to, I agree. I have to be so conscious it happens a lot at the end of the day, when I'm unwinding, rather than pop on social media, I'll pop on these other sites and scroll for a long time liking these objects so hard, I know, but then I don't buy a lot of it too. So you're better? Do you do the abandoned shopping carts online? Oh,

Speaker 2  23:46  
I pretend shop all the time. I pretend shop everywhere. Just picture myself like in a real store everywhere,

Speaker 1  23:55  
the cart that I've handled with all the stuff that, Luckily no one has to put back because it's virtual, but I could

Unknown Speaker  24:01  
just picture,

Speaker 2  24:02  
I pretend shopping every story or everything I go online with all the time. I have to see, just to see what it would be like and what it is and what I found. And I'll even edit, I'll go into the cart, and I'll edit the cart, try to make the number that weren't need the fourth like that to get that bottom number line that might work right for purchase.

Speaker 1  24:21  
Oh yeah, because if I can get below like 200 I could probably pull it off right and that's where right now I'm able to look and say, No, I don't really need it. So I don't, I don't check out right away. I let that like simmer and linger, unless I'm really tired, and I think fatigue has a lot to do with how much more influenceable I am to hit that final purchase.

Unknown Speaker  24:50  
I think we need to not look at those sites at the end of

Speaker 1  24:53  
the day. But that's how I unwind, other than Sudoku. I mean, what do you want me to do?

Unknown Speaker  24:59  
I mean. I play solitaire.

Unknown Speaker  25:02  
I play a lot of solitaire. I read

Speaker 1  25:04  
medical journals. To me out of my day's misery, how about

Speaker 2  25:10  
organization? How's that for you? So organization,

Speaker 1  25:13  
for me, is probably the highest executive function problem out of all of those things being impulsivity and planning and organizations, because it costs a lot of money to organize. Well, not just that kind of organized, but organization also includes time management, and I am completely time blind, and that includes dates. So I remember March 12 is the due date, but by that time, my poor organizational skills that have placed the item in this really nice stack where all my due dates things are, your bills, my bills, yes, I won't be able to find it, and I've really had to change my systems because I'd be late,

Speaker 2  26:05  
like so many ladies, it's un Oh, seriously, be a millionaire from all my ladies

Speaker 1  26:12  
house you could be in. Oh, my God, it's so insane.

Unknown Speaker  26:18  
And again, my God,

Speaker 2  26:20  
I hope. I hope my kid doesn't have as many ladies as I have had in

Speaker 1  26:24  
this particular world, the way it's set up and our capitalism and the financial system is really our our skills are very maladaptive to functioning well in a society that requires you to have these things on time. Now, you know, I have auto pays on on my bills. Now, yes, I make sure you do. And I really this, you know, God, for auto period of my life, I've made sure that my credit score has gone up, instead of that awful bottomness that I would get because I would be late and it would just ding and ding and ding. I didn't realize how important that was for your credit score to be on time. And I try so hard, and then I'd miss it. I thought I would think I paid it. I would forget i I'd start maybe to pay it, and then I'd get distracted and abandon the task, and then in my mind, yeah, I paid it. Have you ever had that where you thought you paid a bill taking your pills? Oh, yeah, did I take my pill? Oh, every morning, yeah, I reopened that cabinet. It's part of my routine, so I remember it better, yes, but even then I triple guessed myself.

Speaker 2  27:37  
But I think that's good that I we both created routines for our pills, and I

Speaker 1  27:43  
did the same thing for finances, where I limit the avenues of how I purchase so I don't have a lot of credit cards. I try to do cash when possible. Yes. And then for for online purchases, its statement balances need to be paid, and that's painful, because if I've overspent, I know, I know

Unknown Speaker  28:09  
it's a struggle. It really is.

Speaker 2  28:12  
It's it's a struggle, but if we start our kids off now, it's not going to be a struggle for them when they get older. So,

Unknown Speaker  28:22  
okay, let's go back to bad times.

Speaker 1  28:26  
Um, paying off debt. My first time I got into debt, I was in my early 20s. No, no, was it 94

Unknown Speaker  28:37  
Yeah, 21

Speaker 1  28:39  
so I had been working, and it was fine. Everything was okay. I had, you know, the credit cards that stores would give you, store credit cards at the mall, you know, Victoria's Secret, whatever,

Unknown Speaker  28:55  
all the mom, yeah,

Speaker 1  28:58  
and I managed them fine. I would pay him. It was great. I would, you know, maybe spend a little more here and there to do whatever, but I would make the monthly payments, and it was fine. And then the earthquake happened in 94 and I had just quit working at UPS and had been hired at a brand new job in an office place, and I did not get to continue that job because they lost so much revenue, they couldn't hire me. And then I didn't have income. I couldn't claim unemployment from UPS because I had officially quit. And then there was no jobs or anything lined up for me at that time, and I was going to school, so that was money, and I didn't have money. I ran out so I was running up my credit cards. I couldn't pay my car insurance, I didn't have health insurance, like all this stuff. And then I get. Took a car accident a few months after that, in May, after the earthquake in January, then I had like, $10,000 in medical bills come in. I had to go see a judge because I didn't have car insurance, because I had to pick what I was going to pay, right? No, I absolutely then I didn't have a house because our house got red taped, so I was like, car bound, but then my car was totally FUBAR. I mean, I'm glad I survived the crash. It was pretty gnarly. So I was in this really, really financial crisis situation, and I didn't know how to get out of it. I did get a job, and I found somewhere, some book or something that told me how to put into a spreadsheet all my credit cards. Take the one you know, you sort it, and you dump equal amounts into it, into each part of the story. Sorry, you have to listen to it because maybe it helps somebody. Your dog's already asleep. I know, hold on, some people might like the spreadsheet. You put equal amounts into it, but once you pay off the smallest credit card, you don't reduce the amount you put into your debt payments. You add it to the highest card, you keep going to reduce each one. And I got myself out of debt, horrible credit score, but I got myself out of debt, and that taught me a lot of things that experience.

Speaker 2  31:24  
But did you do anything with that? Yeah, oh, because I,

Speaker 1  31:28  
I, I, I, I still run spreadsheets like that. So how about you tell me about your financial crisis at promise not to fall asleep.

Speaker 2  31:36  
Well, no, I just I, when I was younger, and my first job, I started making out of college, I interned at a place, and they hired me, and then I became a writer producer there, and I started making my go, what

Speaker 1  31:53  
did you just say? I totally flashed back to the 90s, and I could not hear you because my brain did not attend. Writer producer.

Speaker 2  32:01  
Oh my god, that was so weird. That was wild. Okay? And I was all of a sudden making money. I was making money. I was living with my boyfriend at the beach. I mean, we were just like, living with, oh my God, it was just awesome. And then my boyfriend and I broke up, and I needed to be on my own, but remember, I was worth a living. Yes, I was also working for a woman who taught me about the finer things in life, with shoes and makeup,

Speaker 1  32:38  
first handbags. What was your first hand back? Tell me

Unknown Speaker  32:41  
a Louis Vuitton.

Speaker 2  32:44  
I bought that that was bought for me, but she's the one that taught me all of that. So my friend and I would do tons of retail therapy, and by the time I was 20, right before I met my husband, I had to declare bankruptcy because I couldn't pay my bills, because I had to leave that job, you know, a whole rigmarole happened and I couldn't pay these bills, so I declared bankruptcy, and at 27 right before I met my husband, and I literally didn't have a a credit card balance until we got married. So that was probably six years, and I didn't even I learned from my experience of the bankruptcy, because it took me a long time to rebuild my credit, and I rebuilt it. I did all that and everything, but then I got married, and we got into debt again, and there's just it. It's just a vicious cycle.

Speaker 1  33:42  
And bankruptcy for me was something that corporations did. I didn't know that was something people could do.

Unknown Speaker  33:48  
Oh yeah, you can do it.

Speaker 2  33:50  
Yeah, grief, it's two years of bad credit and you're fine, but whatever. But that's the thing.

Speaker 1  33:55  
I was a foreigner, and those money concepts were not there, so I had bad credit for a really long time from the sleeping instead of recovering faster from that episode. Life happens exactly right, and there's no shame in you taking charge of your financial situation one way or another. Yeah, no, but you need to know what those options are, yeah. And again, going back to that education component, this is not covered. And I think, you know, bankruptcy, have this really, like, shame attached to it? At least there was at the time

Speaker 2  34:30  
back then, like, I didn't tell anybody that I was doing it. Now, I really, no, I did it because it really, I had to, I had to do it. How much shame did you have? Tons of shame or bringing that upon yourself. Oh, my God, tons of shame. I was, like, living in my sister's backyard. She had a guest house, and I, like, went to her crying, like I was just like, I can't do this anymore. I need help. And she got her friend was a lawyer. And I mean, it cost about $2,500 to do it. And for

Speaker 1  35:06  
you do that, if you don't have money to charge,

Speaker 2  35:10  
he basically, I could have paid him off, or I bought you borrow the money from someone, because eventually you'll be able to pay somebody back. And it took, like, I don't know, six months, six months of getting harassed by all my credit cards.

Speaker 1  35:27  
So bank really also, like a rich thing, because if you have no money, and no one can loan you money, because everyone that you are around with also has no money, then you it's not even an option for you to do bankruptcy, you just get the harassment, that's it. Right until you,

Speaker 2  35:44  
yeah, you get the harassment. And because you stop paying everything right away, and the bankruptcy doesn't happen until, like, eight months, like, so basically, my husband, I just started dating, and I would tell him, if he called me, he had to call. Let it ring twice, hang up, call back two, next No, seriously, because I never picked up the phone ever. Phone call code that was their phone call code. There's no texting back then. Is that correct? Kelly, it was like 20 over 20 years ago. I know it's crazy, but you know what? And now that both of us are diagnosed. We do have some debt right now. We did take out a loan to help us out with that, but I have to pay that loan back, and that loans paid every month, and all my bills are paid on time every month. But I do have debt that we're still working on, and we're working on it, yeah, twice, and that's $20,000 so so that was a lot of debt for us. Yeah,

Speaker 1  36:45  
pets are very expensive. Yeah, I always thought that you had, like, this really great financial like oversight ability, whereas, for me again, that reactive approach to money that I had prior to understanding anything my issues, I still have a lot of shame around spending though, even if it's if it's okay, I guess, like, if I'm buying something for myself, I feel like it's, it's, it's like, a secret, and it's shameful that I did it. Um, I don't know. I think that's something

Speaker 2  37:20  
I gotta work on. I do because, you know what? Also, you work really hard. You're and I work really hard. Yeah, me too, and you have to you, you work really hard for the money that you get. You do deserve something, but it's like budgeting. Give yourself $100 a month, and if you need something that's more than that, then you're gonna have to miss out on three months of your $100 to get 300 see, and then you can go do their side. Because unfortunately, I when I spend money, I like to spend it well,

Speaker 1  37:53  
and I spend money with a hyper focus, usually revolved around some sort of creative thing, right? Like, yeah? Like, if I'm painting, I want to have like, every paint color, everything, yeah, you know, I just cleaned this whole weekend, this cacophony room that had all my things just shoved in there. You know, I have like, four embroidery looms. These are these large, wooden, chunky frames. So it's not like they're small. I just like, I didn't know I had so many and I'd forget about them if they're out of sight. And I like, I'm have to do like, a paintbrush inventory, because I think I don't need to buy any more paint brushes for a long time. So many things you can't find. The freaking bill that's due tomorrow. But if it's been moved or or I've placed it without the conscious thought of remembering it, I will forget it. If I consciously want to remember it, I can see it in my head clearly anywhere, but it's that impromptu placement. And then I will find it later, and then those two, then I'll forget its existence, and then I have to buy another one eventually, so garage sales,

Speaker 2  39:12  
so I feel like money is a huge, huge, huge problem for people with ADHD,

Speaker 1  39:20  
it comes with obstacles that, if you don't have one awareness that you have ADHD, which is why I think it's really important to even explore the avenue of whether you have it or not. It could be out of control so easily, and you get into these cycles of spending that, if they go unregulated, they have really huge impact on your future ability, huge to make purchases. And you know, a car like to even buy a car, which, if you're in LA, you have to have one. And then, once you understand, or at least. To acknowledge that these areas are a problem, having some sort of system in place for each particular thing, limiting yourself for this or that, bill paying paying off debt plans, and then if you can't make those finding someone, a friend who's really good at it and asking them what their system is, but then you run into that inherent problem of upkeep of a system,

Speaker 2  40:26  
right? And we can get into that in the next episode. Yeah, that's, that's hard too. That's, that's really hard because it goes so well and then goes so wrong.

Speaker 1  40:36  
And then I think the other component, ultimately, is to, despite all of that, be kind to yourself. You fucked up. Yeah, it's okay. You know, people who don't mess up in that area might mess up in other areas. No one's perfect exactly. There's no shame in it. How I work on that? Yeah, it's a journey. It is, yeah, but still here just be nice. I used to be really, really mean to myself.

Speaker 2  41:04  
Oh, my God. I was so mean to myself. But

Speaker 1  41:08  
after having, you know, really realized what the underlying issues were, I can be nicer to myself about it, and

Unknown Speaker  41:16  
you're good person. Oh, you're a good person. And

Speaker 1  41:21  
you know what's really awesome, what your doc has not farted in my face today. And I love that. Jedi farted he did. Oh, well, he's

Unknown Speaker  41:29  
in your side. I'm over here.

Speaker 1  41:33  
Oh, all right. Well, should we sign this off? I think

Speaker 3  41:36  
we should. Thank you for listening to w, T, H, ADHD, yes, you're actually that's the name of our podcast that we didn't really say or we're doing three professional podcasters. You

Unknown Speaker  42:07  
This has been a hiats, me ADHD production.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai