Managing Money with ADHD: Executive Function Strategies for Financial Health

Welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness, the podcast dedicated to helping you cultivate a healthier, more empowered relationship with your money. I’m Jim Grace, your host, and today’s episode is an essential listen for anyone interested in understanding how our minds – specifically, our executive functioning skills and neurodiverse traits like ADHD – affect our day-to-day financial behaviors and overall financial well-being.

If you’ve ever struggled with procrastination, felt overwhelmed managing your finances, or found it hard to translate long-term goals into short-term action, you’re in the right place. Whether or not you have a formal ADHD diagnosis, today’s discussion is full of insights and practical tips you can apply immediately to your financial life.

5 Key Takeaways

1. Executive Functioning Skills Are Essential for Financial Health Even if you don’t have ADHD, understanding executive functions like organizing, prioritizing, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and goal setting is crucial. These skills help us clarify our financial goals, adapt to challenges, and make thoughtful decisions amidst life's distractions.

2. Procrastination Is Emotional, Not Just Logistical Laurel highlighted that procrastination is often rooted in emotional management rather than pure time management. By pausing to identify what's holding you back emotionally – fear, anxiety, perfectionism – you can better address procrastination in your financial life.

3. The ERAS Framework Provides a Practical Path Forward Laurel introduced the ERAS model (Expectation, Reality, Adjust, Start), which helps you process emotional reactions and create actionable steps. Whether you’re feeling stuck by financial comparisons or overwhelmed by vague goals, working through ERAS builds clarity and momentum.

4. Social Value and Emotional Responses Influence Financial Choices ADHD and executive functioning challenges can make us especially sensitive to social dynamics, like people-pleasing and comparison. Recognizing how social acceptance or rejection influences your financial habits can help you redirect your energy towards more meaningful, self-affirming goals.

5. Start Small, Focus on Behavior, and Build Agency Big changes begin with small steps. Focusing on one concrete behavior at a time – and understanding why it matters to you – lays a foundation for lasting financial wellness. Agency and clarity, not just freedom or abundance, are at the heart of true financial well-being.

Additional Resources

Throughout the show, Laurel and I referenced a host of fantastic resources for further learning, including:

• Books:
• Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
• How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
• Emotional Agility by Susan David
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Experts:
• Tim Pichel (procrastination research)
• Mark Brackett (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
• Daniel Pink (decision-making and behavior change)
• Ethan Kross (Chatter, Shift)

You can find links to all these resources (and more) on modernfinancialwellness.com, both on the episode post and the dedicated resources tab.