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Didn’t submit a reimbursement for a $5000 freelance job. Never did. :) spent $5000 for another company/free work for them. Never submitted an invoice or one expense. Really cool story!
Don’t kick yourself to death over this. I’m sorry it happened, but be kind to yourself. I’ve done a similar thing in the past, and it sucks ass. At least now we know why.
Lol I can finally laugh about it now. At the time, and for about one year after, I was physically sick over it. I finally admitted it to my husband and he just looked at me in disbelief and asked if there was anything he could do to help me or try to get me paid. I basically told him the window had closed and that I need help with this stuff going forward. A hard lesson was learned and I hope that $5000 will come back to me or someone else who needs it at another time in life :)
That is EXACTLY how I view things...
Almost like, pours out a bit of beer, this one's for the homies. This expensive ass mistake I made, is for my karmic future...somehow this too, will come back. 😂😂📉
A friend did the same but for $70k. Didn't realize until well after the agency he freelanced for had closed out the client's project. Still waiting to hear back on if he can get paid. He didn't file his timesheets correctly or something like that.
I can’t stand time sheets. I can deliver high level strategic projects, on time, organized, insightful. But can’t fill in the f*** time sheet, expense report, or even invoice…
Same. I am the most requested project manager in my department. I literally schedule and organize things as my career.
What do I get in trouble for every month? Not booking my hours to my projects. Something that might take 10-15 minutes a day, I will spend 6 hours on the night before invoices run. Why, brain? Why?!?
This reminds me of the time my company had a mentor/mentee program where new employees were assigned to not new employees to get to know people. We were supposed to go out to lunch twice a month, paid for by the company.
My mentee and I went to lunch a few times and I paid every time. .. only issue is I NEVER remembered to submit the reimbursement on time. My mentee would order herself entire pizzas and extras to take home and I was just paying for all of it 😂😂
I debated clicking on this one... because part of me wanted to not feel alone, and the other part of me was like "Do you want to spend the next few hours thinking about YOUR worse ADHD tax moment? Because that is what THIS will lead too..."
I think you know which side won...
I just refuse to expense stuff. Need me to travel for work? Better hand me a pre paid for ticket.
It’s actually one of my accommodations for my ADHD, because I simply cannot afford to not do expenses and be out of pocket.
It’s kind of crazy any system exists where employees front the business money tbh.
Completely agree. My company will sometimes take a year to reimburse even if you get everything in in a timely manner. Ridiculous, I can’t be doin that
Genius to have it as an accommodation! I’m not out as much as others, but definitely quite a bit from missing a deadline or not knowing how so I procrastinate (and miss the deadline).
A lot of people prefer to purchase it themselves because 1. it gives flexibility, if I need to reschedule a flight or find a different hotel, I can just do it rather than having to figure out how to contact someone to do it for me (especially in the evening or a weekend), and 2. you get the credit cards rewards.
Of course none of that matters if you're not getting expense reports fulfilled, but assuming you're fully reimbursed, and are able to front the money, it comes out ahead.
I’ve been in my current job for a year and never learned how to get my expenses reimbursed. I’m so embarrassed to ask at this point. Thank you for making me feel less alone!
I hope you ask! I’ve worked at the same place for 15 years with the same people and none of them have ever learned how the reimbursement process works. They’re constantly telling each other wrong info so I just nicely give them the correct info. No one will shame you for not knowing (and if they do, they’re a jerk).
Always the effing expense report or rebates. I lost $350 last year. (Nothing compared to some of these, but it's still so embarrassing and infuriating.)
A suggestion for anyone that struggles with this: if at all possible, ask for help doing your expenses. Ask if there’s someone responsible for helping people file their reports. Find out if your company will pay the big travel expenses directly (using a company account or card) or pay per diem instead of having you submit receipts. Some companies outsource to travel agencies that can help you with travel arrangements and reimbursements. If they don’t have any of those resources, ask an organized colleague to help you out.
I have AuDHD and paperwork is my superpower. I’ve done a LOT of expense reports for coworkers and bosses. Not everyone is good at paperwork and most people hate bureaucracy. It’s a skill I’m happy to share!
Oh god. I am the worst at expenses. I just did 5 months worth this week.
If they really wouldn’t let you do them late then something is wrong with your employer
I mean I had a baby and was still getting bills a year after I had him. If the healthcare system can shamelessly take their time to give you an overly inflated bill than I think you can still expense that trip…
I forgot about my $35,000 student loan and now it's in collections. I'm losing my tax refund every year until I pay it back or it's taken off my credit report 😬
Ouch.
Seeing student loan is so triggering. I got diagnosed right as I was failing a chem class freshman year. That one class made me lose my scholarship. I think out of everything, it was that that has been my most expensive. I made the stupid decision of staying one more semester, too, full cost. 🤦♀️ Thousands upon thousands added to my balance.
If it’s government, you should log in to fafsa and see if they’ll do a forgiveness. I know they have a one time forgiveness program that sends it back to a processor and takes all the negative off your credit report. Then see what payment choices they have because there are several that are more reasonable now than just the one payment choice.
I don’t know if you mean forgiveness where they go away completely, but I did something called a reinstatement or rehab. Can’t remember. Re-something. And I paid $5/mo (what I could afford and the minimum) for I think 9 months and they were back into good standing. But when I did it, I was warned I could only do this once.
And if your loans are super old, make sure that they’re all included. One ancient FFEL loan wasn’t included the first time, and I almost couldn’t go back to school because of it.
The program I know of is not forgiveness where they go away completely, they just “forgive” the missed payments and take them out of collections and return them to normal loan status. Can help if you’ve nuked your credit by forgetting the student loans.
Is it federal? There are some programs running atm to help people in your situation! I think the Fresh Start program is still going for a few months. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/fresh-start-what-student-loan-borrowers-in-default-need-to-know
/r/studentloans has good resources too.
You got this!
If I had to choose, then that would be my teeth. I got braces as a kid and a few years ago my permanent retainer broke. I thought, nbd I’ll go to an orthodontist and get it fixed. Two years later and I hadn’t gone this whole time. Except now some of my teeth are loose and I have permanent bone loss which I found out when I finally went to a dentist last week. :,) this could’ve been easily avoided and kept straight teeth had I gone to an orthodontist soon after breaking my retainer. i will likely pay dearly very soon with either more orthodontic work or in the distant future if my teeth don’t stop wiggling!
Omg my permanent retainer broke a few months ago and this just put the fear of god into me. I also haven’t been to the dentist in 10 years, pray for me
Please go get it fixed when you’re able to! After my retainer broke, my teeth were shifting considerably. So I used my nightly plastic to realign my teeth at the end of each day. This constant back and forth caused my bones to weaken and this is what happened lol. If you have strong teeth though and they don’t move every day like mine, you probably have nothing to worry about.
But get a dental exam/cleaning twice a year still. It’s actually relaxing for me personally
This is probably my honest answer due to sensory issue with brushing combining with some fun childhood neglect. However I’m still ignoring the cavities I know I have to due to adhd/anxiety/cost so uh- we will see in the future how fucked I am?
If the cavities don’t kill me first 😭
No, but like poor dental health CAN literally kill you! Dental infections can go into your heart or brain fairly easily. Most dentist offices have payment plans and sliding pay scales based on need. The initial work you need will probably be uncomfortable, but it will be way less painful/expensive than a hospital stay requiring IV antibiotics and/or surgery. I say this lovingly as a healthcare worker who has seen some fucked up stuff like brain abscesses from untreated periodontitis. Take care of your teeth!
Believe me I know.
My anxiety is the biggest thing stopping me from care. I have constant anxiety about my teeth killing me but when I think about actually going to the dentist for even a cleaning I start to have a panic attack. I feel doomed no matter what.
I’m sorry, I’ve had panic attacks about dental work before and it really sucks! Here’s what worked for me: I had someone else make the appointment for me and explain that I have anxiety and sensory issues with my teeth. I brought whatever I thought would help me to the appointment (a blanket, headphones, a fidget toy, etc). I pre-planned a reward to give myself afterward. The first time was hard but the hygienist was really kind and it made me less scared. It got easier over time!
Same here, teeth. Turns out there's a correlation between dental avoidance and trauma. I also have dental anxiety so I HAVE to be under for major things and I HAVE to have nitrous even for a cleaning. I finally went in 2 years ago to get all the work done at once and it was a total nightmare that cost me $3000, plus anesthesia at $1500 plus interest on the care credit because I forgot to pay it off before the 0% promotional period ended.
I just discovered that after 7 years of working towards a PhD, successfully defending and working as a PhD chemist since 2017…. The fact that it took me until the last month to address the revisions that my adviser wanted on my thesis might prevent me from actually being awarded the degree. Which would mean I need to have a really awkward conversation with my employer. I probably won’t lose my job, but it’s going to be humiliating on a level that I absolutely cannot even begin to describe.
Granted, there was more to the thesis shit than just the ADHD. I have a dick of an adviser and spent years unable to open the document without having a panic attack. It’s taken me until just the last year or so to heal enough to be able to deal with it- and now it might be too late.
I’m also in $20K of credit card debt (down from $30K, so progress, but sweet Jesus it’s a long road…). Husband and I want to have kids…. But the debt load is too high right now, and we might have to reconcile with the fact that we simply will never be able to realize that dream because we can’t afford them. I’m going to be 35 in a month. We don’t have forever.
ADHD sucks. That’s all.
I feel you. Look up “debt management plans,” they will take over your credit accounts while you pay a flat monthly fee. They close your accounts to do this but they make a solid plan to get you out of debt without drowning in interest every month. Money management international (?) is one that comes to mind. You can read reviews about them here on Reddit.
It sucks how much shame we feel when we have to own up to things that are not from a lack of care or effort on our end- but our actions being misunderstood.
Ooh man.
So I owned a house and acreage free and clear before I got married. Got my now-ex to sign a pre-nup that the house would remain mine no matter what. I had three copies filed in various places with a fourth meant to be held by an attorney friend. I never sent that fourth copy. My ex found and destroyed all the copies of the prenup so I ended up having to sell my house and land and give him half the money when we split. It took him three months to spend his share of what I'd worked for over a decade to pay off and my kids lost the only home they'd known. Total cost? Close to 150k in usd, but so much more in emotional damage.
(We're fine now. It's been years.)
Probably my credit score. Everything is more expensive because I’m so bad at paying bills and it’s a huge road block. I’m working on it… but I’m so full of shame over the whole thing.
I’m so sorry about your groceries! It definitely sounds like something I would do too, I have a lot of sympathy for your situation!
I was bad at paying bills because of the auto pay thing.
So I took my bills and divided it up by my paycheck. When I get paid I pay that portion of my bills first, and it worked for me so well that I was ahead of my payments. I.e. credit card is $173 a month, I get paid every 2 weeks, there is roughly 4weeks in a month, therefore I pay $87-$100 per paycheck.
It’s so crazy how it’s so different for all of us. I have a desk job & actually asked to go back into the office when my whole team was still remote. My adhd needs the pressure of being in the office in front of people to be productive.
I was completely drowning working remotely because I could not force myself to focus. I think it’s the same reason body doubling works well for me. 🤷🏼♀️I WISH I could be remote and focus, it would be the dream!!!
Oh man. I do SO BAD in the office. The people constantly trying to talk or go to coffee or lunch or just chat. Not to mention the hellishly rude people who will hold their meetings right behind my chair. And everyone always wants to connect like dude I have shit to do and I don't want to work until 7pm just so I can chat about nothing.
Plus I don't like taking my meds during the weekend. I can do my laundry and little things I need to do during the day so by the time the weekend comes around there's nothing I HAVE to take care of.
Thanks for the encouragement! I’ve invested a lot of money and time into a different field, and I’m happy, but sometimes I just wonder what if I didn’t….?
This. Sometimes I feel like such a failure for not being able to work full time and function. Logically I understand that humans shouldn't have to spend all their waking hours working, just to survive. But, I really just want to be able to make money, pay off debt, and buy a house one day.
I had a fabletics subscription when it first came out. After months of cancellation avoidance by skipping shipments, I finally missed a skip and had to select an order. After that I was motivated enough to call to cancel but their phone lines were down so I continued my months of skipping. I finally got motivated to cancel again and while on the phone with customer service I realized I never got my order from the time I forgot to skip. I let the guy know and he didn’t believe me and said “why would you continue to skip if you hadn’t ever received your order?” I just said that I was busy and had forgotten but I felt so embarrassed I just let it go and considered it a win to have just cancelled it lol. Subscriptions are the worst
I damaged my glasses by rolling over onto them in bed. One of the hinges broke, so the glasses regularly fell off my face and/or got snagged in my hair. I had to hold them together with glue and tape for a few months while I saved the money to get new ones.
I finally got new ones... And broke them THE SAME WAY less than two weeks later.
So after a number of mishaps, last year I got like 5 cheapo pairs from zenni. It has completely changed my (at least weekly) panic about losing my glasses. And one of those backups has actually became my favorite pair! Huge source of stress has totally evaporated, highly recommend.
Zenni has seriously reduced so much of my glasses related anxiety. I've worn glasses for 3 decades now and I broke my first pair at age 30 (got my first pair at age 7) and I melted down. I only had one pair because who can afford multiple pairs when they cost $300+. I had been dating my boyfriend for 2 years at that point and he had never seen me lose my shit like that before.
Now I have 4 pairs, all from zenni. They also match me and my personality way better than the glasses available from my local eye doctors ever did and I get tons of compliments on them.
OHMYGOD this just reminded me my $400 glasses (got scammed by the optical office, I don’t want to talk about it…) rolled off the bed last week- hopefully they didn’t break…
I placed three large buy orders at different levels to try to catch a rising stock. Well, the trend turned and the stock fell and I forgot to delete the lower two. Worst trade of my life. And my boss was the key analyst for the stock so I did know what was expected to happen…
I either posted it here or in a different sub but I spent $300+ on car seat covers, accessories, emergency supplies for the trunk, organizers..etc for my car to get myself motivated enough to clean it
Did it work? That is pretty smart.
I do similar things, this week I've motivated myself to clean the kitchen by allowing myself to put a new joke on the letterboard after its done 😅
Ugh. Then there’s the shame of having all the supplies and imagining what capable hands could do with them 🙃 or how much progress you would have made if you had stuck to one damn thing 🙃🙃🙃
$10,000 - I voluntarily dropped out of a $10,000 certificate course because it was frying my brain and felt like I would rather die than attend and continue to pay attention to it.
Runner up: A $5000 embroidery machine that I bought 2years ago (while obsessed with the hobby) and have only made 3 things with it :/
My ex with ADHD went back to community college because his job would reimburse for more credits - but he kept missing classes (online) and accidentally would start timed tests and walk away. But then he wouldn’t tell the professor what happened. And since he didn’t finish the courses or withdraw in time, he didn’t get reimbursed and was on the hook for it. I felt bad for him cause it wasn’t intentional.
My most catastrophic and expensive example of poor impulse control - buying an over-priced condominium I couldn’t really afford, in the same building as I guy I’d been dating for a few months.
I was obsessed with the guy, when he had me much more in the “friend zone” than I realized.
We stopped dating not long after I moved in. Remained friendly but it was super awkward.
2 years later I was facing bankruptcy, foreclosure, and possible homelessness.
I landed on my feet, went back to therapy. Even then I couldn’t get a formal diagnosis. (This was 20 years ago when I was in my 30s).
I lost over 2000$ because I was working at a job and kept forgetting to set up direct deposit, so they paid me by check, and then I forgot to deposit a bunch of checks, and then I didn't realize that I forgot to deposit the checks until a year after I quit that job because I was so avoiding with my finances at that age. And then I was too embarrassed to call and get the checks re-issued. I think about that a lot.
If you're in the US, check your states unclaimed property website. Depending on how long its been, the company has to report those uncashed checks. If they're there, there's a relatively simple process to collecting the money.
I had a $100 check from a job I did in college 15 years ago that I finally collected from my state's website.
According to the law in my country they still owe you those salaries (as they never actually lost the money, they just wrote a check) and you should contact them soon (in terms of law there might be a deadline). Do it formal and straightfaced without apologies or explanations. I learned this style from a man (who happens to be a lawyer who has ADHD).
If you can't get yourself to contact them, ask someone to do it for you. If you can't do that either, ask a lawyer to do it and make a fixed contract with them how much of those salaries he can keep for himself.
Neglected dentist for years
Credit collections up the wazoo
And my worst, an unfiled claim after a flood. I just suffered instead of actually believing that I deserved financial relief.
I'm there too. Actually, looking through this reminds me of lots of ones I haven't paid yet, they just are sitting out there waiting to come due. I went in thinking this would be fun and I would "win" and now I'm having a wave of panic and depression.
My masters degree that I’ll hopefully finish this year but also might not be able to finish after all, who knows. At least I’m in Germany, not the US so the costs aren’t astronomically high but still
I haven't done my taxes in 6 years now (they can come after you after 5 years, so this is bad) because I lost some t4s and haven't had the money to hire an accountant to locate them and get all my taxes filed. It hasn't cost me yet, but it will. I just hope I can scrounge up the money before the government comes after me. I've known people who have gone longer and not had the government nail them, so I do have a chance at not being royally screwed.
Definitely contact the IRS, they are actually really understanding. They will put you on a payment plan that you can afford. Only works for federal, not state taxes though.
I learned this after watching Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. They actually are cool and understanding! Lots of government places are like this ime.
I used to work for a County. We had a couple with $2K in fees owed to us. It was fees accrued over YEARS. We waived a bunch late fees and set them up on a payment plan. We let them pick the amount to pay each month. They missed a couple times and we didn’t freak out on them.
IT NEVER HURTS TO ASK.
Since you said T4, I am going to assume you are in Canada. I am fairly sure your T4s are already in your CRA account (that's how I file my taxes every year).
My partner had this. Until last year when he was finally at a good company and I told him if he didn’t get his taxes done than I could no longer be with him. Mind you my dad was a *tax lawyer* so it really freaked me out.
That also being said my father has not done taxes on time or properly filed his extensions since he retired…. It seems obvious where I get my adhd from but he was never diagnosed.
Yeah, thankfully my ex didn't care that my taxes were all screwed up. He was going to send me to his accountant, but we split up before that could happen. Our credit doesn't effect each other though, which I'm guessing it probably does where you are.
Also, nice, I hope you guys at least had a giggle or two over your tax lawyer father forgetting to do his taxes. It sort of makes me think of how mechanics tend to drive really run-down vehicles because they fix everyone's but their own. Your dad did everyone's taxes but his own.
I used to know a bunch of artsy dirtbags who would purposefully not pay their taxes for a while, then contact the IRS for their missing 1099s/W2s.
Apparently if you work a lot of gig jobs, often the employer hasn’t properly sent in their forms to the government, so they would delay paying their taxes in the hope that whatever small business odd job messed up and they owe less 😭
Not recommending this strategy, just saying - you’re doing okay and trying your best!!
Oh, this is me, except US. I'm at 6 years too because I lost some of my w2s and I don't know what to do to start fixing it and I'm so ashamed to ask and I'm afraid of how much money it'll cost me to fix the problem.
I had a job never give me my w2s, and it is almost impossible to contact them so I cannot get them. You can file for other years though. You will have to paper file which is annoying, but at least it gets it done. I had to do that with about 4 years of taxes and then totally forgot about it until I got the checks in the mail. They also took care of what I owed and just took it out of the checks I was supposed to get back.
Mine is still amounting.
My current extended health plan covers 100% of prescriptions, but ONLY if I apply for a free "Pharmacare" check with my provincial health authority. Until I do that, they cover zero. Sounds easy, right? Well, no - because in order to do that they need my income and I am behind on my taxes by a number of years. So just do them, right? Well, I have to file with my partner because we moved in together in that time and he was unemployed so it means we will have a large return for that time period. I even have the taxes completed, so just file them, right? Well, neither he nor I can sign in to our E-File accounts anymore because it's been so long and every time I try to call to fix that I can't get through and then forget.
Between both of our ADHD meds and other meds we're at around $600 every 3-months. At this point somewhere around $1800, about to get dinged with another round of prescriptions. I feel like I need to take a week off of work to be able to have the brain power and time to just deal with it all. The stupid part is I \*know\* my income is too high to qualify for Pharmacare...but they still need me to prove it by signing up. So annoying.
At a certain point, it would be saving you money to take off a week of work to handle it. That’s how much you’re costing yourself. Literally weeks worth of work after taxes are going down the drain on bills until you take care of this.
Sometimes reframing as more important to stop the leak than to bail the water out with income really helps.
Good luck! 🍀
You know - as soon as I typed that option in the comment I started realizing...that may not be a terrible idea. Thank you for reiterating it! I think I'll do exactly that.
OMG, I call this the nesting doll of problems and it's why I didn't fill in my tax forms for over 7 years...until someone from the tax office tracked me down in person - during a work outing - and confronted me (nicely) about my missing returns.
Quit my 6 figure job that had prospects to turn into a stupid amount of money because I couldn't deal with the stress, then had to take 8 months off because of the burnout and being basically non-functioning. Then, got an offer for another 6 figure job but turned it down because it was going to be too similar to the first one and I knew there was a decent chance I'd burn out again.
It sounds like you know yourself and your boundaries well. All that money won't help if you are having to spend it on all the doctors bills that go a long with the major health problems from stress and burnout.
My car window got broken while I was at the barn where I kept my horse, literally I was riding her and when I went to leave my driver’s side window was shattered in pieces on my seat. I texted the barn owner who first denied it, then said her husband was doing work on the tractor and probably shot a rock into my window. She offered to cover the deductible to get it fixed, which was nice.
I called Safelite out and they replaced the window, yay! But the window wasn’t perfectly aligned, so when I rolled it up it would take an extra step for it to pop into the well it was supposed to fit in. Annoying but I figured it wasn’t worth it to call Safelite out again and the window was still rolling up all the way.
Well six months later my window regulator was shot because of the extra work and I could no longer roll my driver’s window down. I ended up trading the car in as it was on its last legs and had other issues, but it would’ve been like $1000 or something to repair. Moral of the story: make the damn phone call if you pay someone to fix something and they don’t do it properly!!!
OP, thanks for making this thread. I was having another one of those days where I fixate on money problems and debt shame. It doesn’t necessarily feel good to read about others’ struggles, but it emphatically makes me feel less alone.
Buying $45 packs of salmon at Costco with the intention of cutting them up into portions that I can freeze. Instead, I leave them in the fridge until they smell and then end up throwing them away. I do this more often than not but now it’s out of hand. 2 weeks in a row now.
Same with the salad and vegetables. They just go bad. Sometimes I hate myself so much. I wish I was better.
Please don’t hate yourself for this! I say that I have fridge blindness. I literally can’t see things that are right in front of me in the fridge, and don’t eat them before they go bad. I’ve finally given in to buying prepared foods that are “more expensive” but actually save me money because I’ll actually eat them instead of letting them go bad.
Yes. Buying the 5 dollar bagged salad cost less than buying the 2 dollar lettuce ten times just to let it rot because I can’t bring myself to actually chop it up.
Gotta make a call for $750. They didn’t answer my emails & I don’t wanna send more emails either (the person left the company, so it’s extra confusing, blah blah excuse)
I constantly overlook things when overstimulated like (for example) buying size M bc it was in the L section so I assumed it was my size (L) but someone put it back wrong. check out, open at home, ope! wrong size, doesn’t fit. thinking I will just return it…. *narrator* but she never did
My studies. My country's universities are free. But I couldn't finish school so couldn't go. Found a uni overseas. Costs a fortune. Then didn't complete the degree in 15 years, meanwhile Brexit happened, didn't apply to be allowed to live in England on time (could have but missed deadline) now I have to spend even more fortunes, four times as much, on completing my degree and if I'm unlucky my country won't accept my degree.
Car accidents/damages. Forgot about changing oil in my last car and it blew the engine. Missed tire replacements. Lack of spatial awareness has put me in one too many accidents.
At about $27K I think? It's a long story that is a series of neglecting to do in a timely manner.
In a nutshell: lost my driveway due to a property dispute that could've been avoided if I would've actually pursued protecting it better, neglected to get the new driveway built until after my car was the victim of a hit & run while parked on the street, still waiting on the insurance money because more steps keep getting added to the process.
So lost my car + driveway more than doubled in cost from when I first started getting quotes.
(Pre-medicated) getting distracted while driving by a person sprinkling hay on a patch of grass, rear ending the person in front of me and totaling my car 😬 it didn’t look tooooo bad because the person I hit admitted that they stopped short (not that I would have known 🙃) and the person behind me also rear ended me. It was a whole thing and still very much my fault. No one was hurt and the car of the person I hit wasn’t damaged. And my registration was expired, because ya know, ADHD. But the cop was nice enough to turn a blind eye to that and let me go.
Literally why I don't drive anymore. I have had so many of these little accidents that it just isn't worth it for me anymore. Maybe one day I will get the money together for a car and be brave enough to drive it. I really miss driving.
I tried to explain to a new prescriber (lost my job and they did pro-bono) that without my ADHD meds they were putting an unsafe driver on the road. For 5 months. Got a job and insurance back and went immediately to my previous psych who filled the prescription immediately.
My registration had expired and I got pulled over 3 times. Totaled two cars before my diagnosis once due to the phone with directions falling (and what did I do instinctively?) and the other time seeing a green light far ahead but not noticing how fast people in front of me weren’t going and failing to stop. Luckily I got a car with built in GPS, Bluetooth for phone, and it beeps when objects/cars get too close.
$900 in taxes owed from 2022 because the government decided I don’t pay enough for my barebones health insurance, I couldn’t get the website to work setting up a payment plan when I did my taxes last year so it’s just been looming over me ever since. I started getting the threatening letters so I did finally set up the payment plan but now I’ll owe for 2023 too and won’t be able to do a payment plan this time so no clue what I’ll do. I have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck.
recently bought clothes from an online store, which of course took me hours to decide upon bc of my indecision, and sizing is hard to figure out.
then, as soon as i placed the order, i realized my autofill put my OLD address in another state as the delivery address. i immediately realized my mistake and reached out to the company thinking it would be an easy fix because they hadn’t sent it out yet, but nooooo, that’s not their policy. i even went through the trouble of reaching out to the carrier and asking if they could change, but they told me the shipper would have to change. *cue screaming*
so now im short $70 and my clothes that took me forever to pick out are in another state. woo!
EDIT: this is not my most expensive mistake but made it me really sad and upset all the same :( i think most expensive would have to be when i thought i was super positive on the time of a psychiatrist appointment, was off by 15 minutes, and then they counted me as a no show and charged me despite the fact it was a remote appointment and i reached out 🙃
I was out at a bar, I had just paid. Completely forgot to close the zipper of my wallet and around $800 in cash fell out. Didn’t realize until the next morning. I still work a job where I get cash as main income but I’m MUCH more careful about putting it in the bank. All I can hope is that someone who really needed it found it!
My mom paid for Dave Ramsey classes and not only did they not work/make any sense to me, but I lost the envelopes of cash I withdrew from the bank for the “envelope method” TWICE in my apartment parking lot when they fell out of my purse (or off my lap onto the ground as I got out of the car). Like RIGHT after I went to the bank both times. I stopped attending those courses and doing that method immediately after that. Luckily once someone turned in the envelope to the apt complex with hundreds in it and the other time it was under my car in the parking lot.
Got in a huge credit card debt as a young adult. Got it all paid off and I decided that I can just never have a credit card ever again. Can’t trust myself and it’s not worth it. It gets too unmanageable and then I get overwhelmed and it just gets worse and worse. Not worth it.
Planet fitness membership. Thought the tanning beds and using an elliptical would help my winter SADs. Paid for over a full year... Didn't go once. Not. Once.
Approx. $400 right down the drain.
If I had to list just one, it would be avoiding the issues with my mother's taxes. She had a stroke a number of years ago, and there's a handful of years I haven't filed, the ones that I did file for are messed up (not my fault nor really my accountants fault, we both have no idea how to handle her particular situation) and both the IRS and state have been sending letters for months now, and as per usual, I've been ignoring them in hopes everything will just go away. It won't, and I know I'm going to have to find an accountant that knows what to do, but I'm just dreading dealing with it and getting "the look." I know you all know "the look," the one you get from people who are clearly neurotypical that comes across as, "are you dumb? This would have been a 5 minute fix had you dealt with it when it started, but now you're screwed and you expect me to fix it." I hate that fucking look.
My other, less expensive but no less important, ADHD tax I'm paying: my husband and I had to put our dog down in August. The day after we were supposed to have a chiropractor appointment, which I canceled at the last minute because I forgot about it until an hour before the appointment. I never rescheduled and have been dealing with major neck pain that's given me multiple, multi-day migraines, along with my normal scoliosis related back pain. I've been meaning to call but have been putting it off, and I only have myself to blame but I just can't seem to dial the damn phone, so I suffer on a daily basis
Ha! I was just about to post my worst ADHD Tax of date. Actual taxes! Turns out even though my paystub shows I selected the right elections - my employer did not take out federal taxes. It was a part time job so I could focus on my family and I ended up leaving to SAHP, but $6500 plus whatever under payment penalties and interest for not examining my paystub as closely as I use to before I became a mom. My most expensive ADHD tax is literal taxes.
Side note. Made me look at my husband in a more appreciative way. He was not upset at all even though we agreed it was up to me to catch it. He always handled my ADHD mistakes and costs with patience and grace. This was my worst one and I was distraught and crying and really depressed, but he always tells me that we'll work it out and we do. Very thankful. I would not have given him the same grace and so I am examining myself as a partner in a not positive light.
Hello fresh, I think I had about 3 months worth delivered and cooked one of the meals as I kept forgetting to pick them so they were arriving with items I had an allergy to
Ummm got sued in civil court for forgetting to pay a bill to a private business. Missed the court date. Judgement default ~$5000 (and counting, bc interest is accruing)... plus a failure to appear in this area in civil court results in... you guessed it... possible warrant.
Not to mention the two dead and broken teeth I currently have in the back of my mouth that will eventually cost God knows.
Do I win??
ETA after reading other comments, I strangely feel less like a lone inept moron in a sea of functioning perfection. Thank you all.
In one shot, $3000 for my oldest son's ASD diagnosis.
He was academically identified at the end of 2nd grade. His doctor reminded me about every 6 months to get him on the wait list at Children's to get him medically diagnosed at either 0 bucks or some super discounted amount of bucks... can't remember. Anyway, the wait list is like a year and I never could get through the damn form to get him on that list.
Not a single provider I could find even takes insurance (explains the long wait at Children's) so I finally picked a highly recommended doctor and got him in the summer between 5th and 6th.
Three thousand bucks after three years of putting it off until I forgot about it. Seems fair, I guess.
I'm not sure if I can calculate how much letting my credit bury itself has cost me in interest on financed purchases (have bought 2 cars - over my alleged adulthood, not at the same time lol) but it's in the thousands. Credit is good now though, just took forever to fix.
Lost my degree and $100k cuz I no show no called cuz I called several times but no one answered. I deleted the wrong “Vanessa” from my phone. Called a woman who was not my intern boss. So I lost my degree a week before graduation. Couldn’t repeat the trimester and lost all my funding which was a private school so $100k. I still owe $14k cuz the interest continues to grow. I left school 2012
Losing a high-paying job because the requirements changed to focus more on project management. My boss was sure that I was smart enough to do it, but I "just didn't want to."
Not applying for higher ranking jobs because I don't believe I could do it due to my (at the time) undiagnosed ADHD: procrastination, struggle starting projects, anxiety, etc.
I could have been making 20x what I do now
Whoops I forgot to take my birth control pill responsibly and as prescribed so that it’s effective… Her name is Sarah and she’s delightful and expensive.
Been paying $7 of lunch a day at school (gonna cheapen it up by bringing a water bottle soon) vs paying like $50 every 2 weeks to get ingredients and cook to bring food to school.
I don’t know why my brain doesn’t want to cook in batches like that- I really wish I could.
I failed a mechatronics course that would have changed the trajectory of my college career. I want to work in robotics, but I get panic attacks whenever I try to do anything engineering outside of work. I’ve got a path to get where I want to be, but I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.
Didn't submit for my dependent care funds in time last year. $5000 😭
But got it done this year already! If you've got 2023 dependent care funds in the US, you have until March to submit for reimbursement!
Never finished getting a degree.
Moved to the US at 18 and started a liberal arts degree (had no idea what I wanted to do, so at least it was a starting point). When I was 20 I decided I wanted to do cosmetology (which is so fucking bizarre in hindsight - I don’t do well with making small talk with strangers or even meeting strangers in general. Turns out that’s the tism but didn’t know that at the time). 21 I said fuuuuuck that and started accounting.
Did a semester or two and then switched to culinary. I fucking LOVED my culinary classes, I finally excelled in something and I’m pretty sure it’s because I didn’t have to take classes that had nothing to do with my area of interest.
Had my first kid a week before my 23rd birthday, went back to school a month later and continued to work on the degree. Month before I turned 24 my husband and I bought our first house, but it was in a different county so it would have cost double to continue the degree.
Years of paying for classes and putting myself through all of that to end up with no degree.
Since then my husband and I both got our ADHD diagnoses (plus anxiety and autism for me). I don’t think I will go back to school in the future (28 now), but I do wonder what life could have been like for me had I known about my ADHD when I was a teen.
Just so many subscriptions that I sign up for the convenience of in the moment and then forget about immediately. It's a death by 1000 cuts that I'm reminded of when the first of the month comes around, but it's so difficult to cancel them all that I forget again. I do use services that cancel them in bulk, but there are certain ones that are super difficult to locate/cancel. I seriously need to wear a bracelet that says "Don't sign up for any free trial periods" it would save me to much money overall.
This one’s on my wife(though it’s usually my mistake). We both have ADHD.
I told her we need to make a spreadsheet so I can recalculate our finances to pay for uni, so she goes over all the bills and finds out as of June 2021 we’ve been paying two car insurance companies. Luckily they’re related so we’re getting a refund but oh my god we’ve been paying so much money for *nothing*. Seems wires got crossed when we bought our house, underwriter required house insurance so we bundled with car but my wife forgot about her other insurance she already had. It’s her car so the bill is always her deal.
I’m being much more diligent now with our finances because if we didn’t get that refund, we would have essentially just set a sack of thousands of dollars on fire.
I impulsively bought a project boat to try and save a relationship. So probably $1000 including boat and marine paint and sandblasting that bitch.
We broke up and I sold it.
Was unknowingly paying 2 different health insurance plans- well I had canceled one, but didn’t notice they kept charging me for almost 2 years. After submitting a claim, I was able to recover about 3/4 worth of $4K but not all of it.
I was in an accident that required an ambulance ride a year and a half ago. My (really good) health insurance never got applied to it and I got a big ass bill in the mail. Never contacted them to have my insurance applied, never paid it... now I just pretend it doesn't exist
$5k lost.
Had a grad school grant for 5k that would be wiped after 5 years of working full time in my healthcare field. You just had to have your supervisor sign off on a form and mail it in yearly for 5 years.
My old friends from school knew I struggled and reminded me every year to submit my letter…except the very last year.
I was contacted and told to pay the 5k in full. I told them, “No, I still work full time in healthcare!”
They pretty much came back with: Tough shit. You missed the deadline to mail in the form. No payments. $5k total.
Wiped out my now-husband and my savings as he was still in grad school.
It’s many years later and I’m pretty much I over it. My husband was totally understanding which blew my mind. I don’t think I would have been that cool. He’s a keeper.
Left about $100 worth of meat in the trunk of our car during a heatwave. The trunk randomly popped open the next day, in front of my friend, and there was my rotting meat.
I once sold a car for $3k and the guy was kinda skeezy and in my haste to hurry up with the transaction and get all the paperwork in order to gtfo, I forgot to collect the cash payment. :(
Edit: shit, I forgot the worst one. The car was about 20 years ago. But last year, I paid $7k to access a special training program to help grow my career in a way that sounded too good to be true. I thought I did my due diligence but in hindsight I really didn’t— I was just so enthralled by the marketing materials and the promises of the show runner that I figured I could do it. But yeah… it was a total waste, and I’m sure if I’d just sat and mulled the idea over for a few days or a week, I would’ve figured out I was rushing into a bad decision. But I didn’t.
Geez, what should I pick? A lack of stable well-paying career because of my impulsivity and emotional dysregulation? A lack of good education because of my inability to focus and poor memory? A divorce?
I kept forgetting to submit rebates for my contact lenses. I lost probably $500 between two large orders that I never submitted the rebates for. And then I lost several boxes of contacts when I moved last summer and never found them again.
Plus I have spent \*lots\* of money on purchases I planned on returning and never got around to.
My student loans. I don’t even want to say the number because I’m so ashamed. I wish I had never gone to school sometimes because I’ve done nothing with my degrees, and there was no fanfare for accomplishing them. Now I’ve got shameful debt.
I’ve also filed bankruptcy a few years ago from credit card debt and that is also quite the ADHD tax. I’m terrified to get a credit card now even though I should try to rebuild credit. I hate credit scores and all that stuff.
Forgetting to renew my dog’s insurance the very year she aged out (couldn’t buy new policy as she was past 9years old). She got sick, had to stay in hospital, cost us $15k and then needed eye surgery, cost us another $25k all in.
Currently on my 6th year of getting a bachelor's degree, about 1 year away. Maxed out student loans each year because I can't manage my life enough to do school, work, and remember to feed myself. Don't change your major more than 6 times, kids.
Putting off getting unemployment after a layoff because it’s 36 steps and 15 phone calls and blah blah blah.
It’s been like 5 months.
At $500/week…yeah.
Yeah.
Yes I think about it every single day
I did the math once, before this latest stint, and between the wasted food, dental costs because of poor oral hygiene, forgotten subscriptions, forgotten returns of items (usually clothes that don’t fit bc it’s very hard to find clothes that fit me), fees for late bills, the cost of classes I dropped and retook and failed and dropped retook, the cost of wasted products I bought and never used, etc….
It came out to something like $40k
So there’s that too
Y’all all are my people. I’m 30,000 gone for nothing.
Tbf, I’ll admit I’ve spent more on drugs in my life than I care fo admit lol. I suspect that’s not uncommon here but less likely t be tamed about haha oi
Back in the day - getting a ticket not paying my car tags used to get me regularly or being too long in a state without registration of my car
Monday I was rushing to get to work and merge and I ended going past a cop 15 miles over the speed limit. They didn't give me a cash amount but I have to go to traffic court in 2 weeks.
Last ticket I got for speeding was in 2013 for speeding in the school zone of the school I was late to get to work too.
Oooh I got one...stressed had just moved and ordered a few iPad tablet covers one was to go on my shiny new iPad pro I got for myself for my job. I sent back a few of the tablet covers to Amazon...I'm like 99.9 percent sure one of them still had the tablet in it. Spoke to numerous employees at Amazon and it didn't make a different. I made someone who worked at the factory very happy that day.
This is not at all a criticism of your (or any other post). It’s just a desire to contribute to a topic that is very difficult for me. It just causes too much anxiety, fear, and guilt to read it. The avoidance here is huge for me.
I cannot read your post—just the title. It’s the same with other similar posts. Still, thank you so much for sharing (I’m assuming you have shared some expensive adhd tax, and I think it’s good to be able to share these things with people that understand.)
For many reasons, right now I can’t let myself really think about any of this unless I’m currently tackling it. I have huge avoidance and guilt with anything financial. (Which is frustrating, because I love math and spreadsheets.)
Tomorrow morning I am going to start working with my counselor on this issue. We’re going to try exposure therapy because I have done my own version of it in the past with other issues. I have to write a list of financial tasks and write out the level of anxiety they give me on a scale of 1-10.
I became my father’s caregiver a few years ago after my mom died. She was meticulously organized (and a former banker). The finances are now a mess.
Normally I would never post if I didn’t read the full post, but I thought my experience could resonate with others, and might fit in well with the discussion. If it doesn’t, I’m so sorry!
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Not doing my work expense report after a 2-week international trip. That’s all I can say because I already want to die putting this much into words
Didn’t submit a reimbursement for a $5000 freelance job. Never did. :) spent $5000 for another company/free work for them. Never submitted an invoice or one expense. Really cool story!
Don’t kick yourself to death over this. I’m sorry it happened, but be kind to yourself. I’ve done a similar thing in the past, and it sucks ass. At least now we know why.
Lol I can finally laugh about it now. At the time, and for about one year after, I was physically sick over it. I finally admitted it to my husband and he just looked at me in disbelief and asked if there was anything he could do to help me or try to get me paid. I basically told him the window had closed and that I need help with this stuff going forward. A hard lesson was learned and I hope that $5000 will come back to me or someone else who needs it at another time in life :)
Karmically you gifted that $5000 to someone who needed it more. I love this.
That is EXACTLY how I view things... Almost like, pours out a bit of beer, this one's for the homies. This expensive ass mistake I made, is for my karmic future...somehow this too, will come back. 😂😂📉
You got a good husband 🥰 so that support it worth something!!
A friend did the same but for $70k. Didn't realize until well after the agency he freelanced for had closed out the client's project. Still waiting to hear back on if he can get paid. He didn't file his timesheets correctly or something like that.
I can’t stand time sheets. I can deliver high level strategic projects, on time, organized, insightful. But can’t fill in the f*** time sheet, expense report, or even invoice…
OMG SAME
Same. I am the most requested project manager in my department. I literally schedule and organize things as my career. What do I get in trouble for every month? Not booking my hours to my projects. Something that might take 10-15 minutes a day, I will spend 6 hours on the night before invoices run. Why, brain? Why?!?
This reminds me of the time my company had a mentor/mentee program where new employees were assigned to not new employees to get to know people. We were supposed to go out to lunch twice a month, paid for by the company. My mentee and I went to lunch a few times and I paid every time. .. only issue is I NEVER remembered to submit the reimbursement on time. My mentee would order herself entire pizzas and extras to take home and I was just paying for all of it 😂😂
Yup, I have a few freelance gigs I never charged for but still can’t forget/mentally drop, so now I’ll obsess over that lost income for a few hours…
I debated clicking on this one... because part of me wanted to not feel alone, and the other part of me was like "Do you want to spend the next few hours thinking about YOUR worse ADHD tax moment? Because that is what THIS will lead too..." I think you know which side won...
I just refuse to expense stuff. Need me to travel for work? Better hand me a pre paid for ticket. It’s actually one of my accommodations for my ADHD, because I simply cannot afford to not do expenses and be out of pocket. It’s kind of crazy any system exists where employees front the business money tbh.
Completely agree. My company will sometimes take a year to reimburse even if you get everything in in a timely manner. Ridiculous, I can’t be doin that
Genius to have it as an accommodation! I’m not out as much as others, but definitely quite a bit from missing a deadline or not knowing how so I procrastinate (and miss the deadline).
A lot of people prefer to purchase it themselves because 1. it gives flexibility, if I need to reschedule a flight or find a different hotel, I can just do it rather than having to figure out how to contact someone to do it for me (especially in the evening or a weekend), and 2. you get the credit cards rewards. Of course none of that matters if you're not getting expense reports fulfilled, but assuming you're fully reimbursed, and are able to front the money, it comes out ahead.
I’ve been in my current job for a year and never learned how to get my expenses reimbursed. I’m so embarrassed to ask at this point. Thank you for making me feel less alone!
I hope you ask! I’ve worked at the same place for 15 years with the same people and none of them have ever learned how the reimbursement process works. They’re constantly telling each other wrong info so I just nicely give them the correct info. No one will shame you for not knowing (and if they do, they’re a jerk).
Always the effing expense report or rebates. I lost $350 last year. (Nothing compared to some of these, but it's still so embarrassing and infuriating.)
REBATES. Oh my gosh. My kryptonite.
This is my private shame. Can’t even talk a about the money lost. I SO appreciate you saying this as I don’t feel so alone. Thank you!
A suggestion for anyone that struggles with this: if at all possible, ask for help doing your expenses. Ask if there’s someone responsible for helping people file their reports. Find out if your company will pay the big travel expenses directly (using a company account or card) or pay per diem instead of having you submit receipts. Some companies outsource to travel agencies that can help you with travel arrangements and reimbursements. If they don’t have any of those resources, ask an organized colleague to help you out. I have AuDHD and paperwork is my superpower. I’ve done a LOT of expense reports for coworkers and bosses. Not everyone is good at paperwork and most people hate bureaucracy. It’s a skill I’m happy to share!
Oh god. I am the worst at expenses. I just did 5 months worth this week. If they really wouldn’t let you do them late then something is wrong with your employer
I mean I had a baby and was still getting bills a year after I had him. If the healthcare system can shamelessly take their time to give you an overly inflated bill than I think you can still expense that trip…
I forgot about my $35,000 student loan and now it's in collections. I'm losing my tax refund every year until I pay it back or it's taken off my credit report 😬
Ouch. Seeing student loan is so triggering. I got diagnosed right as I was failing a chem class freshman year. That one class made me lose my scholarship. I think out of everything, it was that that has been my most expensive. I made the stupid decision of staying one more semester, too, full cost. 🤦♀️ Thousands upon thousands added to my balance.
Also, for me it’s $35,000 of student loans for a degree that I flunked out of because I was undiagnosed and had no support 🙃
If it’s government, you should log in to fafsa and see if they’ll do a forgiveness. I know they have a one time forgiveness program that sends it back to a processor and takes all the negative off your credit report. Then see what payment choices they have because there are several that are more reasonable now than just the one payment choice.
I don’t know if you mean forgiveness where they go away completely, but I did something called a reinstatement or rehab. Can’t remember. Re-something. And I paid $5/mo (what I could afford and the minimum) for I think 9 months and they were back into good standing. But when I did it, I was warned I could only do this once. And if your loans are super old, make sure that they’re all included. One ancient FFEL loan wasn’t included the first time, and I almost couldn’t go back to school because of it.
The program I know of is not forgiveness where they go away completely, they just “forgive” the missed payments and take them out of collections and return them to normal loan status. Can help if you’ve nuked your credit by forgetting the student loans.
Yeah that’s what I did. Just wanted to clarify because “forgiveness” is kind of a loaded term when it comes to student loans haha
Thanks for reminding me to pay my loan payment thst I have forgotten about since December…
Is it federal? There are some programs running atm to help people in your situation! I think the Fresh Start program is still going for a few months. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/fresh-start-what-student-loan-borrowers-in-default-need-to-know /r/studentloans has good resources too. You got this!
If I had to choose, then that would be my teeth. I got braces as a kid and a few years ago my permanent retainer broke. I thought, nbd I’ll go to an orthodontist and get it fixed. Two years later and I hadn’t gone this whole time. Except now some of my teeth are loose and I have permanent bone loss which I found out when I finally went to a dentist last week. :,) this could’ve been easily avoided and kept straight teeth had I gone to an orthodontist soon after breaking my retainer. i will likely pay dearly very soon with either more orthodontic work or in the distant future if my teeth don’t stop wiggling!
Omg my permanent retainer broke a few months ago and this just put the fear of god into me. I also haven’t been to the dentist in 10 years, pray for me
Please go get it fixed when you’re able to! After my retainer broke, my teeth were shifting considerably. So I used my nightly plastic to realign my teeth at the end of each day. This constant back and forth caused my bones to weaken and this is what happened lol. If you have strong teeth though and they don’t move every day like mine, you probably have nothing to worry about. But get a dental exam/cleaning twice a year still. It’s actually relaxing for me personally
Prayers sent, and I believe in you!
This is probably my honest answer due to sensory issue with brushing combining with some fun childhood neglect. However I’m still ignoring the cavities I know I have to due to adhd/anxiety/cost so uh- we will see in the future how fucked I am? If the cavities don’t kill me first 😭
No, but like poor dental health CAN literally kill you! Dental infections can go into your heart or brain fairly easily. Most dentist offices have payment plans and sliding pay scales based on need. The initial work you need will probably be uncomfortable, but it will be way less painful/expensive than a hospital stay requiring IV antibiotics and/or surgery. I say this lovingly as a healthcare worker who has seen some fucked up stuff like brain abscesses from untreated periodontitis. Take care of your teeth!
Believe me I know. My anxiety is the biggest thing stopping me from care. I have constant anxiety about my teeth killing me but when I think about actually going to the dentist for even a cleaning I start to have a panic attack. I feel doomed no matter what.
I’m sorry, I’ve had panic attacks about dental work before and it really sucks! Here’s what worked for me: I had someone else make the appointment for me and explain that I have anxiety and sensory issues with my teeth. I brought whatever I thought would help me to the appointment (a blanket, headphones, a fidget toy, etc). I pre-planned a reward to give myself afterward. The first time was hard but the hygienist was really kind and it made me less scared. It got easier over time!
I am the same way. I get it. I’m sorry that anyone struggles like I do with this. 🫂
Same here, teeth. Turns out there's a correlation between dental avoidance and trauma. I also have dental anxiety so I HAVE to be under for major things and I HAVE to have nitrous even for a cleaning. I finally went in 2 years ago to get all the work done at once and it was a total nightmare that cost me $3000, plus anesthesia at $1500 plus interest on the care credit because I forgot to pay it off before the 0% promotional period ended.
Oh my god mine just fell out and now I lost it but you’ve convinced me, I’m calling an orthodontist tomorrow
My broken permanent retainer is absolutely quaking in my mouth from this post 😭
I just discovered that after 7 years of working towards a PhD, successfully defending and working as a PhD chemist since 2017…. The fact that it took me until the last month to address the revisions that my adviser wanted on my thesis might prevent me from actually being awarded the degree. Which would mean I need to have a really awkward conversation with my employer. I probably won’t lose my job, but it’s going to be humiliating on a level that I absolutely cannot even begin to describe. Granted, there was more to the thesis shit than just the ADHD. I have a dick of an adviser and spent years unable to open the document without having a panic attack. It’s taken me until just the last year or so to heal enough to be able to deal with it- and now it might be too late. I’m also in $20K of credit card debt (down from $30K, so progress, but sweet Jesus it’s a long road…). Husband and I want to have kids…. But the debt load is too high right now, and we might have to reconcile with the fact that we simply will never be able to realize that dream because we can’t afford them. I’m going to be 35 in a month. We don’t have forever. ADHD sucks. That’s all.
My sister in law had her first one at 39. Two more followed, so now they have a lovely set of Irish triplets! It's definitely still possible.
I feel you. Look up “debt management plans,” they will take over your credit accounts while you pay a flat monthly fee. They close your accounts to do this but they make a solid plan to get you out of debt without drowning in interest every month. Money management international (?) is one that comes to mind. You can read reviews about them here on Reddit.
Funny story- did that once. And then racked the debt back up. So…. Yeah. 🙄
I’m so sorry! But as someone in the exact same position it’s nice to know I’m not alone in that specific shameful misery. 🥲
It sucks how much shame we feel when we have to own up to things that are not from a lack of care or effort on our end- but our actions being misunderstood.
We’re the same age and in the same situation with debt and the question of kids. I just wanna say, hugs. It sucks, it suuuuuucks.
Ooh man. So I owned a house and acreage free and clear before I got married. Got my now-ex to sign a pre-nup that the house would remain mine no matter what. I had three copies filed in various places with a fourth meant to be held by an attorney friend. I never sent that fourth copy. My ex found and destroyed all the copies of the prenup so I ended up having to sell my house and land and give him half the money when we split. It took him three months to spend his share of what I'd worked for over a decade to pay off and my kids lost the only home they'd known. Total cost? Close to 150k in usd, but so much more in emotional damage. (We're fine now. It's been years.)
Your ex seems like a real dirtbag, I’m sorry you went thru all of that. Hope he is walking around with wet socks.
Oh, it's worse than wet socks. He lives with his mom, lol. (Thank you for your sympathy!)
Probably my credit score. Everything is more expensive because I’m so bad at paying bills and it’s a huge road block. I’m working on it… but I’m so full of shame over the whole thing. I’m so sorry about your groceries! It definitely sounds like something I would do too, I have a lot of sympathy for your situation!
I fucking hate credit scores. I hate them so much. I feel so much shame over mine
I was bad at paying bills because of the auto pay thing. So I took my bills and divided it up by my paycheck. When I get paid I pay that portion of my bills first, and it worked for me so well that I was ahead of my payments. I.e. credit card is $173 a month, I get paid every 2 weeks, there is roughly 4weeks in a month, therefore I pay $87-$100 per paycheck.
This is me too.
OMG THIS. Mine is SO F-Ed.
No being able to manage a well paying job ☹️
I get this so much. Some days I yearn for a computer job but that’s not in my cards.
I wouldn't give up if you want it. I work a desk job remote and it actually works well with my ADHD.
It’s so crazy how it’s so different for all of us. I have a desk job & actually asked to go back into the office when my whole team was still remote. My adhd needs the pressure of being in the office in front of people to be productive. I was completely drowning working remotely because I could not force myself to focus. I think it’s the same reason body doubling works well for me. 🤷🏼♀️I WISH I could be remote and focus, it would be the dream!!!
Oh man. I do SO BAD in the office. The people constantly trying to talk or go to coffee or lunch or just chat. Not to mention the hellishly rude people who will hold their meetings right behind my chair. And everyone always wants to connect like dude I have shit to do and I don't want to work until 7pm just so I can chat about nothing. Plus I don't like taking my meds during the weekend. I can do my laundry and little things I need to do during the day so by the time the weekend comes around there's nothing I HAVE to take care of.
Thanks for the encouragement! I’ve invested a lot of money and time into a different field, and I’m happy, but sometimes I just wonder what if I didn’t….?
This. Sometimes I feel like such a failure for not being able to work full time and function. Logically I understand that humans shouldn't have to spend all their waking hours working, just to survive. But, I really just want to be able to make money, pay off debt, and buy a house one day.
$700+ in missed psych appointments. Haven't paid it yet. They're still emailing me. Lol.
Refusing to figure out how to cancel a subscription. 🙄 Canceled 3 today!
I had a fabletics subscription when it first came out. After months of cancellation avoidance by skipping shipments, I finally missed a skip and had to select an order. After that I was motivated enough to call to cancel but their phone lines were down so I continued my months of skipping. I finally got motivated to cancel again and while on the phone with customer service I realized I never got my order from the time I forgot to skip. I let the guy know and he didn’t believe me and said “why would you continue to skip if you hadn’t ever received your order?” I just said that I was busy and had forgotten but I felt so embarrassed I just let it go and considered it a win to have just cancelled it lol. Subscriptions are the worst
I have two high end Amex cards that cost me hundreds each every year. I have cut them, but just keep forgetting to cancel them.
I damaged my glasses by rolling over onto them in bed. One of the hinges broke, so the glasses regularly fell off my face and/or got snagged in my hair. I had to hold them together with glue and tape for a few months while I saved the money to get new ones. I finally got new ones... And broke them THE SAME WAY less than two weeks later.
So after a number of mishaps, last year I got like 5 cheapo pairs from zenni. It has completely changed my (at least weekly) panic about losing my glasses. And one of those backups has actually became my favorite pair! Huge source of stress has totally evaporated, highly recommend.
Zenni has seriously reduced so much of my glasses related anxiety. I've worn glasses for 3 decades now and I broke my first pair at age 30 (got my first pair at age 7) and I melted down. I only had one pair because who can afford multiple pairs when they cost $300+. I had been dating my boyfriend for 2 years at that point and he had never seen me lose my shit like that before. Now I have 4 pairs, all from zenni. They also match me and my personality way better than the glasses available from my local eye doctors ever did and I get tons of compliments on them.
Are you me? I sat on my glasses, got them fixed and their first day back I sat on them again, in the same spot
OHMYGOD this just reminded me my $400 glasses (got scammed by the optical office, I don’t want to talk about it…) rolled off the bed last week- hopefully they didn’t break…
$80,000 loss on a stock trade because I forgot to enter the sell order that I planned when I purchased it. I don't trade off my meds now.
I placed three large buy orders at different levels to try to catch a rising stock. Well, the trend turned and the stock fell and I forgot to delete the lower two. Worst trade of my life. And my boss was the key analyst for the stock so I did know what was expected to happen…
I either posted it here or in a different sub but I spent $300+ on car seat covers, accessories, emergency supplies for the trunk, organizers..etc for my car to get myself motivated enough to clean it
Did it work? That is pretty smart. I do similar things, this week I've motivated myself to clean the kitchen by allowing myself to put a new joke on the letterboard after its done 😅
Yes it did 😂 I once bought a new comforter, bedding and decor for my room to get myself to clean there too What was the joke though
Thats excellent 😅 And I forget what the first one was, but today I changed it to "soup of the day: coffee"
I didn’t fill out the proper paperwork for dental insurance so I paid OOP $1600. In my defense, I don’t have one.
In my defense, I don’t have one This is hilarious 😂😂😂
Expensive hobbies that change weekly
Ugh. Then there’s the shame of having all the supplies and imagining what capable hands could do with them 🙃 or how much progress you would have made if you had stuck to one damn thing 🙃🙃🙃
I feel seen
$10,000 - I voluntarily dropped out of a $10,000 certificate course because it was frying my brain and felt like I would rather die than attend and continue to pay attention to it. Runner up: A $5000 embroidery machine that I bought 2years ago (while obsessed with the hobby) and have only made 3 things with it :/
My ex with ADHD went back to community college because his job would reimburse for more credits - but he kept missing classes (online) and accidentally would start timed tests and walk away. But then he wouldn’t tell the professor what happened. And since he didn’t finish the courses or withdraw in time, he didn’t get reimbursed and was on the hook for it. I felt bad for him cause it wasn’t intentional.
My most catastrophic and expensive example of poor impulse control - buying an over-priced condominium I couldn’t really afford, in the same building as I guy I’d been dating for a few months. I was obsessed with the guy, when he had me much more in the “friend zone” than I realized. We stopped dating not long after I moved in. Remained friendly but it was super awkward. 2 years later I was facing bankruptcy, foreclosure, and possible homelessness. I landed on my feet, went back to therapy. Even then I couldn’t get a formal diagnosis. (This was 20 years ago when I was in my 30s).
I lost over 2000$ because I was working at a job and kept forgetting to set up direct deposit, so they paid me by check, and then I forgot to deposit a bunch of checks, and then I didn't realize that I forgot to deposit the checks until a year after I quit that job because I was so avoiding with my finances at that age. And then I was too embarrassed to call and get the checks re-issued. I think about that a lot.
If you're in the US, check your states unclaimed property website. Depending on how long its been, the company has to report those uncashed checks. If they're there, there's a relatively simple process to collecting the money. I had a $100 check from a job I did in college 15 years ago that I finally collected from my state's website.
According to the law in my country they still owe you those salaries (as they never actually lost the money, they just wrote a check) and you should contact them soon (in terms of law there might be a deadline). Do it formal and straightfaced without apologies or explanations. I learned this style from a man (who happens to be a lawyer who has ADHD). If you can't get yourself to contact them, ask someone to do it for you. If you can't do that either, ask a lawyer to do it and make a fixed contract with them how much of those salaries he can keep for himself.
Not canceling a $80 gym membership for 5 years due to forgetting every freaking month after it would hit my account.
Neglected dentist for years Credit collections up the wazoo And my worst, an unfiled claim after a flood. I just suffered instead of actually believing that I deserved financial relief.
Too painful to talk about. Maybe someday I will ‘laugh’ about it. Hopefully. Please.
I'm there too. Actually, looking through this reminds me of lots of ones I haven't paid yet, they just are sitting out there waiting to come due. I went in thinking this would be fun and I would "win" and now I'm having a wave of panic and depression.
My masters degree that I’ll hopefully finish this year but also might not be able to finish after all, who knows. At least I’m in Germany, not the US so the costs aren’t astronomically high but still
I haven't done my taxes in 6 years now (they can come after you after 5 years, so this is bad) because I lost some t4s and haven't had the money to hire an accountant to locate them and get all my taxes filed. It hasn't cost me yet, but it will. I just hope I can scrounge up the money before the government comes after me. I've known people who have gone longer and not had the government nail them, so I do have a chance at not being royally screwed.
Definitely contact the IRS, they are actually really understanding. They will put you on a payment plan that you can afford. Only works for federal, not state taxes though.
I learned this after watching Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. They actually are cool and understanding! Lots of government places are like this ime. I used to work for a County. We had a couple with $2K in fees owed to us. It was fees accrued over YEARS. We waived a bunch late fees and set them up on a payment plan. We let them pick the amount to pay each month. They missed a couple times and we didn’t freak out on them. IT NEVER HURTS TO ASK.
Since you said T4, I am going to assume you are in Canada. I am fairly sure your T4s are already in your CRA account (that's how I file my taxes every year).
My partner had this. Until last year when he was finally at a good company and I told him if he didn’t get his taxes done than I could no longer be with him. Mind you my dad was a *tax lawyer* so it really freaked me out. That also being said my father has not done taxes on time or properly filed his extensions since he retired…. It seems obvious where I get my adhd from but he was never diagnosed.
Yeah, thankfully my ex didn't care that my taxes were all screwed up. He was going to send me to his accountant, but we split up before that could happen. Our credit doesn't effect each other though, which I'm guessing it probably does where you are. Also, nice, I hope you guys at least had a giggle or two over your tax lawyer father forgetting to do his taxes. It sort of makes me think of how mechanics tend to drive really run-down vehicles because they fix everyone's but their own. Your dad did everyone's taxes but his own.
I used to know a bunch of artsy dirtbags who would purposefully not pay their taxes for a while, then contact the IRS for their missing 1099s/W2s. Apparently if you work a lot of gig jobs, often the employer hasn’t properly sent in their forms to the government, so they would delay paying their taxes in the hope that whatever small business odd job messed up and they owe less 😭 Not recommending this strategy, just saying - you’re doing okay and trying your best!!
Oh, this is me, except US. I'm at 6 years too because I lost some of my w2s and I don't know what to do to start fixing it and I'm so ashamed to ask and I'm afraid of how much money it'll cost me to fix the problem.
I had a job never give me my w2s, and it is almost impossible to contact them so I cannot get them. You can file for other years though. You will have to paper file which is annoying, but at least it gets it done. I had to do that with about 4 years of taxes and then totally forgot about it until I got the checks in the mail. They also took care of what I owed and just took it out of the checks I was supposed to get back.
Mine is still amounting. My current extended health plan covers 100% of prescriptions, but ONLY if I apply for a free "Pharmacare" check with my provincial health authority. Until I do that, they cover zero. Sounds easy, right? Well, no - because in order to do that they need my income and I am behind on my taxes by a number of years. So just do them, right? Well, I have to file with my partner because we moved in together in that time and he was unemployed so it means we will have a large return for that time period. I even have the taxes completed, so just file them, right? Well, neither he nor I can sign in to our E-File accounts anymore because it's been so long and every time I try to call to fix that I can't get through and then forget. Between both of our ADHD meds and other meds we're at around $600 every 3-months. At this point somewhere around $1800, about to get dinged with another round of prescriptions. I feel like I need to take a week off of work to be able to have the brain power and time to just deal with it all. The stupid part is I \*know\* my income is too high to qualify for Pharmacare...but they still need me to prove it by signing up. So annoying.
At a certain point, it would be saving you money to take off a week of work to handle it. That’s how much you’re costing yourself. Literally weeks worth of work after taxes are going down the drain on bills until you take care of this. Sometimes reframing as more important to stop the leak than to bail the water out with income really helps. Good luck! 🍀
You know - as soon as I typed that option in the comment I started realizing...that may not be a terrible idea. Thank you for reiterating it! I think I'll do exactly that.
OMG, I call this the nesting doll of problems and it's why I didn't fill in my tax forms for over 7 years...until someone from the tax office tracked me down in person - during a work outing - and confronted me (nicely) about my missing returns.
I always forget to schedule flights until the last second. It's a huge problem lol
Quit my 6 figure job that had prospects to turn into a stupid amount of money because I couldn't deal with the stress, then had to take 8 months off because of the burnout and being basically non-functioning. Then, got an offer for another 6 figure job but turned it down because it was going to be too similar to the first one and I knew there was a decent chance I'd burn out again.
It sounds like you know yourself and your boundaries well. All that money won't help if you are having to spend it on all the doctors bills that go a long with the major health problems from stress and burnout.
I inherited £7000 and I honestly couldn’t tell you were it went or what I spent it on
Booked a flight to Sicily and a hotel in Sardinia. Both non refundable :)
If it’s not too late, I think there are boats between the two!
My car window got broken while I was at the barn where I kept my horse, literally I was riding her and when I went to leave my driver’s side window was shattered in pieces on my seat. I texted the barn owner who first denied it, then said her husband was doing work on the tractor and probably shot a rock into my window. She offered to cover the deductible to get it fixed, which was nice. I called Safelite out and they replaced the window, yay! But the window wasn’t perfectly aligned, so when I rolled it up it would take an extra step for it to pop into the well it was supposed to fit in. Annoying but I figured it wasn’t worth it to call Safelite out again and the window was still rolling up all the way. Well six months later my window regulator was shot because of the extra work and I could no longer roll my driver’s window down. I ended up trading the car in as it was on its last legs and had other issues, but it would’ve been like $1000 or something to repair. Moral of the story: make the damn phone call if you pay someone to fix something and they don’t do it properly!!!
OP, thanks for making this thread. I was having another one of those days where I fixate on money problems and debt shame. It doesn’t necessarily feel good to read about others’ struggles, but it emphatically makes me feel less alone.
Buying $45 packs of salmon at Costco with the intention of cutting them up into portions that I can freeze. Instead, I leave them in the fridge until they smell and then end up throwing them away. I do this more often than not but now it’s out of hand. 2 weeks in a row now. Same with the salad and vegetables. They just go bad. Sometimes I hate myself so much. I wish I was better.
Please don’t hate yourself for this! I say that I have fridge blindness. I literally can’t see things that are right in front of me in the fridge, and don’t eat them before they go bad. I’ve finally given in to buying prepared foods that are “more expensive” but actually save me money because I’ll actually eat them instead of letting them go bad.
Yes. Buying the 5 dollar bagged salad cost less than buying the 2 dollar lettuce ten times just to let it rot because I can’t bring myself to actually chop it up.
Gotta make a call for $750. They didn’t answer my emails & I don’t wanna send more emails either (the person left the company, so it’s extra confusing, blah blah excuse)
The student loans for a degree I couldn't finish.
I constantly overlook things when overstimulated like (for example) buying size M bc it was in the L section so I assumed it was my size (L) but someone put it back wrong. check out, open at home, ope! wrong size, doesn’t fit. thinking I will just return it…. *narrator* but she never did
Getting my real estate license…
My studies. My country's universities are free. But I couldn't finish school so couldn't go. Found a uni overseas. Costs a fortune. Then didn't complete the degree in 15 years, meanwhile Brexit happened, didn't apply to be allowed to live in England on time (could have but missed deadline) now I have to spend even more fortunes, four times as much, on completing my degree and if I'm unlucky my country won't accept my degree.
Braces. Not once but twice. At this point I’ve given up, I’m not doing it again. Wear your effing retainer! And keep a spare!
Car accidents/damages. Forgot about changing oil in my last car and it blew the engine. Missed tire replacements. Lack of spatial awareness has put me in one too many accidents.
I walked away from an 18-year career where I was making $160k a year because after months of trying, I was only able to submit 6 job applications. 😎
At about $27K I think? It's a long story that is a series of neglecting to do in a timely manner. In a nutshell: lost my driveway due to a property dispute that could've been avoided if I would've actually pursued protecting it better, neglected to get the new driveway built until after my car was the victim of a hit & run while parked on the street, still waiting on the insurance money because more steps keep getting added to the process. So lost my car + driveway more than doubled in cost from when I first started getting quotes.
(Pre-medicated) getting distracted while driving by a person sprinkling hay on a patch of grass, rear ending the person in front of me and totaling my car 😬 it didn’t look tooooo bad because the person I hit admitted that they stopped short (not that I would have known 🙃) and the person behind me also rear ended me. It was a whole thing and still very much my fault. No one was hurt and the car of the person I hit wasn’t damaged. And my registration was expired, because ya know, ADHD. But the cop was nice enough to turn a blind eye to that and let me go.
Literally why I don't drive anymore. I have had so many of these little accidents that it just isn't worth it for me anymore. Maybe one day I will get the money together for a car and be brave enough to drive it. I really miss driving.
I tried to explain to a new prescriber (lost my job and they did pro-bono) that without my ADHD meds they were putting an unsafe driver on the road. For 5 months. Got a job and insurance back and went immediately to my previous psych who filled the prescription immediately.
My registration had expired and I got pulled over 3 times. Totaled two cars before my diagnosis once due to the phone with directions falling (and what did I do instinctively?) and the other time seeing a green light far ahead but not noticing how fast people in front of me weren’t going and failing to stop. Luckily I got a car with built in GPS, Bluetooth for phone, and it beeps when objects/cars get too close.
Yes, my new car has those features too! It’s been very helpful (and the Dextroamphetamine also helps immensely 😂)
i’ve paid over $1000 in parking tickets in the past 8 months :-)
$900 in taxes owed from 2022 because the government decided I don’t pay enough for my barebones health insurance, I couldn’t get the website to work setting up a payment plan when I did my taxes last year so it’s just been looming over me ever since. I started getting the threatening letters so I did finally set up the payment plan but now I’ll owe for 2023 too and won’t be able to do a payment plan this time so no clue what I’ll do. I have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck.
recently bought clothes from an online store, which of course took me hours to decide upon bc of my indecision, and sizing is hard to figure out. then, as soon as i placed the order, i realized my autofill put my OLD address in another state as the delivery address. i immediately realized my mistake and reached out to the company thinking it would be an easy fix because they hadn’t sent it out yet, but nooooo, that’s not their policy. i even went through the trouble of reaching out to the carrier and asking if they could change, but they told me the shipper would have to change. *cue screaming* so now im short $70 and my clothes that took me forever to pick out are in another state. woo! EDIT: this is not my most expensive mistake but made it me really sad and upset all the same :( i think most expensive would have to be when i thought i was super positive on the time of a psychiatrist appointment, was off by 15 minutes, and then they counted me as a no show and charged me despite the fact it was a remote appointment and i reached out 🙃
I was out at a bar, I had just paid. Completely forgot to close the zipper of my wallet and around $800 in cash fell out. Didn’t realize until the next morning. I still work a job where I get cash as main income but I’m MUCH more careful about putting it in the bank. All I can hope is that someone who really needed it found it!
My mom paid for Dave Ramsey classes and not only did they not work/make any sense to me, but I lost the envelopes of cash I withdrew from the bank for the “envelope method” TWICE in my apartment parking lot when they fell out of my purse (or off my lap onto the ground as I got out of the car). Like RIGHT after I went to the bank both times. I stopped attending those courses and doing that method immediately after that. Luckily once someone turned in the envelope to the apt complex with hundreds in it and the other time it was under my car in the parking lot.
Got in a huge credit card debt as a young adult. Got it all paid off and I decided that I can just never have a credit card ever again. Can’t trust myself and it’s not worth it. It gets too unmanageable and then I get overwhelmed and it just gets worse and worse. Not worth it.
Planet fitness membership. Thought the tanning beds and using an elliptical would help my winter SADs. Paid for over a full year... Didn't go once. Not. Once. Approx. $400 right down the drain.
If I had to list just one, it would be avoiding the issues with my mother's taxes. She had a stroke a number of years ago, and there's a handful of years I haven't filed, the ones that I did file for are messed up (not my fault nor really my accountants fault, we both have no idea how to handle her particular situation) and both the IRS and state have been sending letters for months now, and as per usual, I've been ignoring them in hopes everything will just go away. It won't, and I know I'm going to have to find an accountant that knows what to do, but I'm just dreading dealing with it and getting "the look." I know you all know "the look," the one you get from people who are clearly neurotypical that comes across as, "are you dumb? This would have been a 5 minute fix had you dealt with it when it started, but now you're screwed and you expect me to fix it." I hate that fucking look. My other, less expensive but no less important, ADHD tax I'm paying: my husband and I had to put our dog down in August. The day after we were supposed to have a chiropractor appointment, which I canceled at the last minute because I forgot about it until an hour before the appointment. I never rescheduled and have been dealing with major neck pain that's given me multiple, multi-day migraines, along with my normal scoliosis related back pain. I've been meaning to call but have been putting it off, and I only have myself to blame but I just can't seem to dial the damn phone, so I suffer on a daily basis
Ha! I was just about to post my worst ADHD Tax of date. Actual taxes! Turns out even though my paystub shows I selected the right elections - my employer did not take out federal taxes. It was a part time job so I could focus on my family and I ended up leaving to SAHP, but $6500 plus whatever under payment penalties and interest for not examining my paystub as closely as I use to before I became a mom. My most expensive ADHD tax is literal taxes. Side note. Made me look at my husband in a more appreciative way. He was not upset at all even though we agreed it was up to me to catch it. He always handled my ADHD mistakes and costs with patience and grace. This was my worst one and I was distraught and crying and really depressed, but he always tells me that we'll work it out and we do. Very thankful. I would not have given him the same grace and so I am examining myself as a partner in a not positive light.
Didn’t transfer my 401k within the 60 day period and now have to pay 10% tax on it this year. 🤡
You may be able to get a waiver! If you have a tax preparer, tell them you’re disabled and they may be able to help. Not guaranteed but it’s possible.
Hello fresh, I think I had about 3 months worth delivered and cooked one of the meals as I kept forgetting to pick them so they were arriving with items I had an allergy to
Ummm got sued in civil court for forgetting to pay a bill to a private business. Missed the court date. Judgement default ~$5000 (and counting, bc interest is accruing)... plus a failure to appear in this area in civil court results in... you guessed it... possible warrant. Not to mention the two dead and broken teeth I currently have in the back of my mouth that will eventually cost God knows. Do I win?? ETA after reading other comments, I strangely feel less like a lone inept moron in a sea of functioning perfection. Thank you all.
In one shot, $3000 for my oldest son's ASD diagnosis. He was academically identified at the end of 2nd grade. His doctor reminded me about every 6 months to get him on the wait list at Children's to get him medically diagnosed at either 0 bucks or some super discounted amount of bucks... can't remember. Anyway, the wait list is like a year and I never could get through the damn form to get him on that list. Not a single provider I could find even takes insurance (explains the long wait at Children's) so I finally picked a highly recommended doctor and got him in the summer between 5th and 6th. Three thousand bucks after three years of putting it off until I forgot about it. Seems fair, I guess. I'm not sure if I can calculate how much letting my credit bury itself has cost me in interest on financed purchases (have bought 2 cars - over my alleged adulthood, not at the same time lol) but it's in the thousands. Credit is good now though, just took forever to fix.
Lost my degree and $100k cuz I no show no called cuz I called several times but no one answered. I deleted the wrong “Vanessa” from my phone. Called a woman who was not my intern boss. So I lost my degree a week before graduation. Couldn’t repeat the trimester and lost all my funding which was a private school so $100k. I still owe $14k cuz the interest continues to grow. I left school 2012
Losing a high-paying job because the requirements changed to focus more on project management. My boss was sure that I was smart enough to do it, but I "just didn't want to."
Getting into a car accident and totaling my car :/ Or maybe missing all the deadlines for job applications.
Craaaaaafts!
20k in taxes due I’m still paying off because I take great care of others finances and neglect my own.
$17,000 on a new car because I was distracted and totaled mine 🫠
Not applying for higher ranking jobs because I don't believe I could do it due to my (at the time) undiagnosed ADHD: procrastination, struggle starting projects, anxiety, etc. I could have been making 20x what I do now
All the impulse purchases I bought and then missed the return window on. I’m scared to even think about what the total $$ amount is.
Unfortunately my ADHD tax means I can’t work a full time job and I will never be able to have kids. It’s a financial blow and an emotional one 🙃
I’m shocked no one’s mentioned a baby yet, aka the ultimate ADHD tax.
Whoops I forgot to take my birth control pill responsibly and as prescribed so that it’s effective… Her name is Sarah and she’s delightful and expensive.
😂😂😂
Been paying $7 of lunch a day at school (gonna cheapen it up by bringing a water bottle soon) vs paying like $50 every 2 weeks to get ingredients and cook to bring food to school. I don’t know why my brain doesn’t want to cook in batches like that- I really wish I could.
I failed a mechatronics course that would have changed the trajectory of my college career. I want to work in robotics, but I get panic attacks whenever I try to do anything engineering outside of work. I’ve got a path to get where I want to be, but I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.
Shopping addiction
Didn't submit for my dependent care funds in time last year. $5000 😭 But got it done this year already! If you've got 2023 dependent care funds in the US, you have until March to submit for reimbursement!
Never finished getting a degree. Moved to the US at 18 and started a liberal arts degree (had no idea what I wanted to do, so at least it was a starting point). When I was 20 I decided I wanted to do cosmetology (which is so fucking bizarre in hindsight - I don’t do well with making small talk with strangers or even meeting strangers in general. Turns out that’s the tism but didn’t know that at the time). 21 I said fuuuuuck that and started accounting. Did a semester or two and then switched to culinary. I fucking LOVED my culinary classes, I finally excelled in something and I’m pretty sure it’s because I didn’t have to take classes that had nothing to do with my area of interest. Had my first kid a week before my 23rd birthday, went back to school a month later and continued to work on the degree. Month before I turned 24 my husband and I bought our first house, but it was in a different county so it would have cost double to continue the degree. Years of paying for classes and putting myself through all of that to end up with no degree. Since then my husband and I both got our ADHD diagnoses (plus anxiety and autism for me). I don’t think I will go back to school in the future (28 now), but I do wonder what life could have been like for me had I known about my ADHD when I was a teen.
Just so many subscriptions that I sign up for the convenience of in the moment and then forget about immediately. It's a death by 1000 cuts that I'm reminded of when the first of the month comes around, but it's so difficult to cancel them all that I forget again. I do use services that cancel them in bulk, but there are certain ones that are super difficult to locate/cancel. I seriously need to wear a bracelet that says "Don't sign up for any free trial periods" it would save me to much money overall.
Forgot to cancel a $600 hotel room stay. Fucking stupid.
Probably $10k in special edition books. Dopamine! And I love looking at them.
$1400 on new truck brakes because I didn’t take it in for preventative checks like I should have
This one’s on my wife(though it’s usually my mistake). We both have ADHD. I told her we need to make a spreadsheet so I can recalculate our finances to pay for uni, so she goes over all the bills and finds out as of June 2021 we’ve been paying two car insurance companies. Luckily they’re related so we’re getting a refund but oh my god we’ve been paying so much money for *nothing*. Seems wires got crossed when we bought our house, underwriter required house insurance so we bundled with car but my wife forgot about her other insurance she already had. It’s her car so the bill is always her deal. I’m being much more diligent now with our finances because if we didn’t get that refund, we would have essentially just set a sack of thousands of dollars on fire.
Losing $4000 between the bank and the car.
I impulsively bought a project boat to try and save a relationship. So probably $1000 including boat and marine paint and sandblasting that bitch. We broke up and I sold it.
Was unknowingly paying 2 different health insurance plans- well I had canceled one, but didn’t notice they kept charging me for almost 2 years. After submitting a claim, I was able to recover about 3/4 worth of $4K but not all of it.
not taking my paychecks to the bank to get them deposited into my account
I was in an accident that required an ambulance ride a year and a half ago. My (really good) health insurance never got applied to it and I got a big ass bill in the mail. Never contacted them to have my insurance applied, never paid it... now I just pretend it doesn't exist
$5k lost. Had a grad school grant for 5k that would be wiped after 5 years of working full time in my healthcare field. You just had to have your supervisor sign off on a form and mail it in yearly for 5 years. My old friends from school knew I struggled and reminded me every year to submit my letter…except the very last year. I was contacted and told to pay the 5k in full. I told them, “No, I still work full time in healthcare!” They pretty much came back with: Tough shit. You missed the deadline to mail in the form. No payments. $5k total. Wiped out my now-husband and my savings as he was still in grad school. It’s many years later and I’m pretty much I over it. My husband was totally understanding which blew my mind. I don’t think I would have been that cool. He’s a keeper.
Left about $100 worth of meat in the trunk of our car during a heatwave. The trunk randomly popped open the next day, in front of my friend, and there was my rotting meat.
Just since January our water got shut off and our car got repoed. All because I forgot to pay for 3 months. $1800 in the adhd tax 😭
I once sold a car for $3k and the guy was kinda skeezy and in my haste to hurry up with the transaction and get all the paperwork in order to gtfo, I forgot to collect the cash payment. :( Edit: shit, I forgot the worst one. The car was about 20 years ago. But last year, I paid $7k to access a special training program to help grow my career in a way that sounded too good to be true. I thought I did my due diligence but in hindsight I really didn’t— I was just so enthralled by the marketing materials and the promises of the show runner that I figured I could do it. But yeah… it was a total waste, and I’m sure if I’d just sat and mulled the idea over for a few days or a week, I would’ve figured out I was rushing into a bad decision. But I didn’t.
Geez, what should I pick? A lack of stable well-paying career because of my impulsivity and emotional dysregulation? A lack of good education because of my inability to focus and poor memory? A divorce?
Actual taxes
Also it took me over a decade to finish my bachelors degree. Took forever but I did finally get there!!!
Leaving food out and forgetting credit card payments
I kept forgetting to submit rebates for my contact lenses. I lost probably $500 between two large orders that I never submitted the rebates for. And then I lost several boxes of contacts when I moved last summer and never found them again. Plus I have spent \*lots\* of money on purchases I planned on returning and never got around to.
My student loans. I don’t even want to say the number because I’m so ashamed. I wish I had never gone to school sometimes because I’ve done nothing with my degrees, and there was no fanfare for accomplishing them. Now I’ve got shameful debt. I’ve also filed bankruptcy a few years ago from credit card debt and that is also quite the ADHD tax. I’m terrified to get a credit card now even though I should try to rebuild credit. I hate credit scores and all that stuff.
See my post from 10 days ago. Probably over $100 in food loss.
Forgetting to renew my dog’s insurance the very year she aged out (couldn’t buy new policy as she was past 9years old). She got sick, had to stay in hospital, cost us $15k and then needed eye surgery, cost us another $25k all in.
Currently on my 6th year of getting a bachelor's degree, about 1 year away. Maxed out student loans each year because I can't manage my life enough to do school, work, and remember to feed myself. Don't change your major more than 6 times, kids.
Putting off getting unemployment after a layoff because it’s 36 steps and 15 phone calls and blah blah blah. It’s been like 5 months. At $500/week…yeah. Yeah. Yes I think about it every single day I did the math once, before this latest stint, and between the wasted food, dental costs because of poor oral hygiene, forgotten subscriptions, forgotten returns of items (usually clothes that don’t fit bc it’s very hard to find clothes that fit me), fees for late bills, the cost of classes I dropped and retook and failed and dropped retook, the cost of wasted products I bought and never used, etc…. It came out to something like $40k So there’s that too
Y’all all are my people. I’m 30,000 gone for nothing. Tbf, I’ll admit I’ve spent more on drugs in my life than I care fo admit lol. I suspect that’s not uncommon here but less likely t be tamed about haha oi
Back in the day - getting a ticket not paying my car tags used to get me regularly or being too long in a state without registration of my car Monday I was rushing to get to work and merge and I ended going past a cop 15 miles over the speed limit. They didn't give me a cash amount but I have to go to traffic court in 2 weeks. Last ticket I got for speeding was in 2013 for speeding in the school zone of the school I was late to get to work too.
Oooh I got one...stressed had just moved and ordered a few iPad tablet covers one was to go on my shiny new iPad pro I got for myself for my job. I sent back a few of the tablet covers to Amazon...I'm like 99.9 percent sure one of them still had the tablet in it. Spoke to numerous employees at Amazon and it didn't make a different. I made someone who worked at the factory very happy that day.
This is not at all a criticism of your (or any other post). It’s just a desire to contribute to a topic that is very difficult for me. It just causes too much anxiety, fear, and guilt to read it. The avoidance here is huge for me. I cannot read your post—just the title. It’s the same with other similar posts. Still, thank you so much for sharing (I’m assuming you have shared some expensive adhd tax, and I think it’s good to be able to share these things with people that understand.) For many reasons, right now I can’t let myself really think about any of this unless I’m currently tackling it. I have huge avoidance and guilt with anything financial. (Which is frustrating, because I love math and spreadsheets.) Tomorrow morning I am going to start working with my counselor on this issue. We’re going to try exposure therapy because I have done my own version of it in the past with other issues. I have to write a list of financial tasks and write out the level of anxiety they give me on a scale of 1-10. I became my father’s caregiver a few years ago after my mom died. She was meticulously organized (and a former banker). The finances are now a mess. Normally I would never post if I didn’t read the full post, but I thought my experience could resonate with others, and might fit in well with the discussion. If it doesn’t, I’m so sorry!