Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (AADD) and Money: Turning a Setback into an Advantage

Adult Attention Deficit Disorder is a disorder which affects millions of Americans. Those of us who suffer from such a disorder have a tendency to quickly lose attention, and have some obsessive compulsive habits. Most of us have learned to live with the habit; however those of us who have such a disorder find it much more difficult to handle our money properly. We have a tendency to be much more impulsive with our purchases because of our obsessive compulsive nature, and that leads us to some major financial problems. Continue reading to learn how you can turn these disadvantages into something that can actually help your financial life.

We have really good intentions about saving money for some purchases that we really don't want to buy on credit, but for whatever reason, all of our cash seems to find a way to jump out of our pockets. If you spend impulsively, saving money can be an extremely hard thing to do, but there is a solution. There are a lot of online banks which offer very high interest rates and have no fees at all, such as ING Direct, HSBC Direct and Amboy Direct. These accounts have very high interest rates, often above 5%, which make them very desirable.

How do these plans help those who have adult ADD and cannot find a way to quit spending money? There are a couple of things that they do. The first thing that you can do is setup automatic transfers which will suck money out of your account on a weekly or monthly basis without you having a chance to spend it. This is essentially a forced savings account, so that you are forcing yourself to spend the money.

The second advantage may seem like a disadvantage, but it actually helps those who are impulsive with money. With online savings accounts, you cannot visit a local branch when you want to withdraw money. Instead you have to electronically transfer the money, which often takes up to 3 or 4 days to do. So if you get an impulse to spend a few hundred dollars on a purchase that you do not need, you'll have to wait a few days to get your money. By the time the money actually comes, chances are the impulse would have come and gone, and you would no longer be interested in making the purchase.