Death and (ADHD) Taxes
2025 has started off…not great. Not good at all. There was the terrible attack in New Orleans, Los Angeles is still on fire, we are a week away from That Guy being president again, and the horrendous article about Neil Gaiman dropped in New York Magazine (CW: sexual assault, possible child abuse). The latter is just another episode of Are All Men Terrible Actually, but as a Tori Amos fan, it feels personal. I’ll share my thoughts when I can stomach it. I’ve known about this for a while, but the new details are truly nauseating.
Despite this cornucopia of depressing treasures, I was determined to have my shit together this week. I am slowly weaning myself off of the Holiday Teat, which means I am trying to cut down on sugar, which means less wine and candy. I am also trying to stay within a budget, and I just had an unexpected expense pop up, plus I am going away the first week in February to see about some whales (more on that later). I made a delicious beef bulgogi for dinner last night and we neatly put the meat and rice away so I could take it to work. I put that and my morning protein shake in my favorite brightly colored tote like a Responsible Human and prepared to get out the door.
I ask you, friends - did I remember to take the tote even though I quite literally put it next to my purse precisely so I wouldn’t forget it? No. No, I did not. Thus, I must purchase lunch here in midtown, which on a good day is at least $15. Fortunately, I have a gift card to Pret a Manger I still need to use. Now I am eating potato chips for breakfast because I found some in my work desk.
The Adderall was NOT Adderalling today.
Every single bit of advice I see on the internet about how to save money is like asking ADHD people to do a Tough Mudder at 7 am. Bring your own lunch to work! Sure, if remembering something that isn’t in the normal list of stuff to bring is feasible. Bring a thermos of coffee instead of buying it! Please see above.
We refer to this sort of thing as “ADHD Tax”. I am sad TikTok is going away, because I will miss gems like this explainer (and I love this creator, too). Indeed, he is correct: ADHD Tax is that little bit of extra money you have to spend because you fucked up.
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A Very Incomplete List of Ways I Have Paid ADHD Tax:
Not cancelling a venue in time and losing a $1000 deposit
Missing credit card or student loan payments (back before my bff AutoPay) and having my interest rates increased
Accidentally booking 1 adult instead of 2 at a resort for our 10th anniversary (thankfully figured it out before we flew all the way to Mexico)
Missing the return window on countless items I swore I would return
Library fines, which is part of why I stopped going to the library (also returning tapes to Blockbuster back in the day)
Forgetting something and having to purchase it while out. See: phone chargers, sports bras, headphones, etc. This was especially common when I used to go to a gym.
Defrosting something and forgetting I had defrosted it, meaning it was left to spoil on the counter. See also: putting leftovers in Tupperware and then never actually putting them in the fridge.
Accidentally throwing away an envelope of cash we’d been saving for a trip (to be fair, we aren’t 100% sure it was me, but I’m the one with ADHD in my house, so it’s a safe bet)
Booking the wrong night in a hotel and showing up to discover I didn’t have a reservation and having to shell out $500 for a room same day
Losing my passport (I mostly blame the bartender from the Canucks bar in the Vancouver airport for making me the world’s strongest Bloody Mary. At least I had already gone through US Customs). Would not have been a big deal had I not needed to fly to Canada to see a production of mine, which I sadly had to miss because it was 2022 and passport processing was backed up, and I didn’t have enough time to get an Enhanced License at the DMV (since I was taking a bus from Detroit, I could have used that). This was one of my least favorite taxes, because it cost me the rare and magical experience of seeing a production. Thank god I at least got to watch it on Zoom.
It can be frustrating for our loved ones and people who rely on us, as late bills and forgotten errands can be viewed as a sign of carelessness. The few times my husband has gotten super mad at me about this, he softened, mostly because he saw how mad I was at myself. Most of the time I think people are confused. I am a person who Very Much Has it Together on the surface, so when I make a costly mistake, it is usually a surprise. Little do they know how much my life has been spent being overprepared -precisely so this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Before I was diagnosed, having to pay extra because of what I thought was just my own stupidity and incompetence would create an avalanche of shame.
Our brains can be very profitable - just not for us. Amazon and Apple profit off of our inability to remember to cancel subscriptions, there are tons of ADHD Coaches and gimmicky journals for sale, we all have our stimming vices (things to fidget with, vapes, alcohol, food, etc.), and a forgotten bill payment can lead to a ton of cascading issues. I had my interest rate on one credit card go up to nearly 28% because of one late payment.
On top of that, ADHD is an expensive disorder to diagnose and treat. According to this article, ADHDers pay close to $2,300 yearly on specialists, medication and therapy alone. Not to mention fees for forgetting said doctor’s appointments, or worse, forgetting to make one in the first place. ADHD can make it difficult to get up the motivation to call your doctor and make an appointment. Suddenly, that mild toothache from a few weeks ago turns into an emergency trip to the dentist for a root canal, which can be brutally expensive even with dental insurance. Or, more ominously - a weird looking mole or lump in your breast isn’t checked out in due time, which can lead to a worst case scenario.
The taxes are also paid in stress and time. By forgetting my protein shake this morning, optimally I would have gone to get a different kind of shake at CVS, but I didn’t have time. Instead, I wound up eating half a croissant and a handful of chips, which is better than eating nothing, but now my meds aren’t working as effectively. It cost me not only money, but time and efficiency. My whole day is screwy now.
So what to do?
Accept it, work with it, and don’t sweat the small stuff
This is not to say you shouldn’t try to avoid the Dreaded Tax. Of course you should, especially if you are in a precarious financial situation. But you also need to accept that having ADHD means that once in a while, you are going to forget something, and its going to cost a little bit of money. The key is not getting too rattled if it’s not a huge deal. If you cashed out your Executive Function for the day, and you forgot that chicken breast you took out, it will probably not lead to financial ruin, nor should it spur a Full Menty B.
Instead, focus on the bigger things. Make sure you set up auto-pay on credit cards and/or loans so that at least the minimum gets paid. Ask a friend, spouse or roommate to remind you of important dates, like when rent is coming due. Use a paper planner in addition to your phone - your phone is too easy to ignore. I find that if I write something down in a planner, it stays in my brain a lot longer than something I put into my phone. There is something to be said for muscle memory.
Here is a post from last year where I reviewed a few planners. I am still using the one I said was my favorite (and it is very affordable!).
I Tried Some ADHD Planners
One way I do not fit the traditional ADHD profile is that I am a fairly organized person. I have been an Executive Assistant for close to 20 years now, and keeping other people organized is my literal job. I am not quite as organized in my own life, but I have a system that has worked for me so far. I think it …
There’s no question that I will still be paying ADHD Tax once in a while. I don’t think that particular hammer is one I can escape entirely. What I can do is recognize that I am human, and even if I didn’t have ADHD, we all forget something at home once in a while. If it’s a bigger mistake, I can think about how to avoid it in the future without going down the bunny hole of shame and berating myself. That being said, I am still pissy about having to eat a mediocre sandwich today. My beef bulgogi will have to wait until tomorrow. If I can remember to bring it this time.
I keep a big roll of blue painter's tape in my kitchen drawer for marking the date on things in plastic bins in the fridge or freezer. AND I also use a big piece of that blue tape to tape across my front door to help me remember the thing I put by the door so I wouldn't forget it.
It is wild how many years (DECADES) I referred to and measured this personal "tax" as reflected by lost calculators and keys and late fees and missed appointments and just thought I was an inattentive asshole. Even after getting control of it as an adult and squeezing it out of my professional life, I still didn't realize it was an obvious symptom of ADHD for another decade.