¶ Intro / Opening
Even though I work in this space, I still have ADHD. So I get it. I'm not somebody who's come into this space and go, Oh, this is all so easy. Like, why aren't you doing this? You know, it's easy to cancel stuff. It's easy to look at your finances. Yeah, it's 100%. Not that easy. But some things are, I totally understand and even myself, like, I still get myself into these situations where I have been paying for stuff for months and haven't used it or I struggled to cancel things. It's
hard. And I still do you know, the impulsive spending these days. I'm much more aware of it. And I know how to get out of that spiral. And that's, that's what I hope to teach people. It's not that you're never going to impulsively spend before. It's not that you're never going to forget subscriptions. You've got ADHD, this is going to happen. But it's getting out of that shame spiral. It's getting out of that spending spiral that is super important rather than trying to be perfect.
Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Shipman. Let's get started. Today I have Tina madams from the ADHD accountant on Instagram, I'm sure a lot of you know her as that she is a financial educator and a mother of two. She is an autistic and ADHD accountants. She owns an accounting firm in Australia. So it's bright and early for her as we record here today and works with ADHD ears all over the world helping them with their finances warm welcome, Tina.
Hi, thank you for having me. This is an absolute dream to be on your podcast. So I am so excited.
Ah, it's so nice meeting Instagram friends in real life. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, and yeah, so Australia is one of my favorite places to go. I studied abroad there for five months at Sydney. Loved it. People were so nice. Loves the accents. Love the weather. So I'm super jealous haven't been back there in about 20 years. Oh, wow.
It is it's a really beautiful place to live very lucky.
Absolutely. So I knew that you had ADHD, hence your Instagram handle, but I didn't realize that you also are autistic. Is that a more recent diagnosis? It
¶ Getting an ADHD diagnosis after noticing symptoms in her son.
is. And I've started already identifying as autistic because before I started the process I pretty much knew anyway, my son is autistic and ADHD. And we are very, very similar. So I'm actually I'm not technically diagnosed yet. I'm still going through the process. But it's, you know, it's very, very unlikely that it's not going to come out with a diagnosis. So I thought, you know, start identifying as that already. Absolutely.
Now, do you have an official ADHD diagnosis? Yes, I do. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. And it's so interesting, because I'm finding that a lot of people are realizing the ADHD first, and then the autism, and I know that with autism, proximately 75% of people who have autism also have ADHD. Oh, yeah. Wow, that's high. But yeah, it's fascinating that so many people get diagnosed with ADHD. First, I'm curious what led you to get the ADHD diagnosis.
So that was my son, before he got diagnosed. Before I got diagnosed. I had a psychologist told me that I had high functioning anxiety, which I was stoked with. I thought, you know, that is the answer to all my problems array. Because it makes so much sense, right? You know, as I researched it, I was like, This is me, when I started treating that, things that I thought would get better
didn't. So I knew in my heart that that wasn't, that wasn't it, there was something else, but I didn't know what it was. And I started noticing anxiety symptoms in my son. So I approached his teachers at the time and said, you know, this is what I'm thinking is that, you know, any background at school that you can help me with and they said, look, take him to a pediatrician. We think there might be some processing things there. You know, he's not quite
processing things. He is very delayed in his responses and things like that, which, you know, considering he'd been in that classroom for a year, I was like, this is all new to me. So that was a bit of a shock. I ended up getting him to a pediatrician, went through all the process. He came out with a diagnosis of autism, ADHD, primarily inattentive, ADHD as well, which I didn't know was a thing and there was a few other
things in there as well. The autism diagnosis wasn't as hard to get my head around, like I thought, you know, I thought back to things I'm like, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense for him. The ADHD But because in my brain like a lot of people's brain, I thought that was the disruptive child, you know, running around bouncing off the
walls at school paper. And I thought, yeah, I thought if that was him, his Surely his teachers would have told me you know, he's not even though he's very explosive at home and all these emotions and all that kind of stuff was actually if it was happening at school, I would have known. And then the inattentive, I was like, I didn't, I didn't even know there was different presentations of ADHD. So I researched a lot just to help him, I thought, if I'm going to help him with this, I
need to know what it is. During that research, however, I realized that a lot of things sounded like me and my childhood. I didn't even know adults could have ADHD, I didn't know that carried through, I thought it was literally just a thing that kids had. And I started listening a lot to Dr. Russell Barkley and other YouTube videos, articles, ADHD, websites, anything that I could, you know, podcasts, anything
that I could learn about. And it just got to this point where I was like, this just explains so much about my childhood, so much about my adulthood. And I went and sought my own assessment and diagnosis, and yeah, got a pretty easily diagnosed.
¶ Being misdiagnosed with anxiety when it was undiagnosed ADHD.
Wow. And it's so interesting, because I hear this from so many late diagnosed women that they are pre diagnosed with anxiety. I also had that as well. And I'm curious, you sought treatment for your anxiety, what? And you said it didn't work? What type of treatment were you getting for that? That didn't work for you?
So it was just all the, I guess the holistic stuff. So I never went down the medication route for anxiety, I just wanted to at the time, I just wanted to try all the, you know, the lifestyle things first. So I was getting out into nature more into some more doing more sort of just walking, like sort of, I guess, grounding exercises.
regulating your nervous system. Yeah, yeah, a little bit.
As much as I knew. That's the thing. Like I've done a lot more work around my nervous system now because I understand ADHD, but at the time, I didn't know all that. So it was just like, you know, what can I do to just calm myself down a little bit more from this anxiety, one of the things that stood out for me was that my psychologist said, Don't do the exercise that gets your heart rate up, because that can increase your anxiety, you know, do more yoga and things like
that. And I was like, That just doesn't make sense to me, because it was the heart raising exercises that would calm me down. Whereas the yoga, my brain would just keep going, that wasn't coming for me. So that was one of the things that I was like this as much as this makes sense. There's just some things that you know, aren't quite right with this. So it was that kind of stuff that, you know, as much as I did that, and it was nice. It didn't help with the
other symptoms. That turned out to be ADHD symptoms.
Yeah. So do you still have the diagnosis of anxiety?
Yes, I do. Yeah. So during when I got diagnosed with ADHD, they also diagnosed me with social anxiety and generalized anxiety as well. So yeah, so
it's interesting, because the anxiety and ADHD, especially for women are very complex and unique to treat it. And we know that no two people even though you and I have the same diagnosis, ADHD, and generalized and social anxiety, doesn't mean you and I are going to treat it the same. And if we try treating it the same doesn't mean that that would work the same for us. So I find it fascinating. When you are told, don't do high intensity workouts, do things that are going to be essentially
mindful for you. But then your brain is all over the place. And I've heard from so many that don't take stimulants, if you have anxiety, because that might increase your anxiety with ADHD. Yeah, I do take stimulants. I'm not sure if you treat your ADHD medically. But yeah, there's just so many nuances. Yeah,
yeah, there is. And now that I'm going through the process of the autism diagnosis, I am starting to question the anxiety diagnosis. Um, like, there is an anxiety there. But you know, is it because of ADHD and autism, like the social anxiety? I know that in myself if I just be myself, and in a social setting, the
social anxiety goes down. So you know, it's one of those things where it's like, Yes, I get told I have social anxiety but only when your mask if I'm just allowed to be myself that kind of goes down and so it's like Is it really social anxiety? Or do people just need to accept that everybody's different in a social setting? So, yeah,
that's really powerful. Can you tell me when you feel like you can be yourself in a social situation and when you cannot be yourself?
Yeah, I find that I'm more myself when I know that people are going to accept me. So you know, obviously, you know, around my family, I've got a few friends that know about my diagnoses as well. And I know they're totally fine with it. And I can just relax a little bit more. So you know, if I suddenly tune out, or if I have to ask them to repeat something that they said, because I don't remember because I was thinking
about something else. Like, that's all like, hey, it's when I get into situations that I don't know the people very well, or I know that they're not overly accepting of ADHD, and other diagnoses, that I tend to get that anxiety a little bit more. And I find myself, you know, stressed and I can feel it in my body. So yeah, they're just a couple of examples of where that's shown up.
Hmm. I've spoken to different psychologists and psychiatrists who do not believe in Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or social anxiety disorder, and they think that it's a function of your unmanaged ADHD or trauma. So it's fascinating to hear that from you. You know, social anxiety should be social anxiety whenever you're in a social situation. But you're saying that when you can be yourself, you don't have that social anxiety. So you're, you're an expert in ADHD, and
you have a son with autism. And now you're learning yourself how to manage that, in a way and what actually is going on with your brain? It's it's really fascinating. It is, yeah. Yeah. And like so many parents, they know that they have ADHD and or autism because of their children. Because as you mentioned, it's generally the boy in the classroom who can sit still in that is what the teacher is usually diagnosed first, as a child with ADHD. Yep. So anyway, you are also an
accountant. Tina, tell us about that. So how did you shift from getting the diagnosis? I don't know when you started becoming an accountant when you niched into being an ADHD accountant. Tell us about that.
¶ Her journey from traditional accounting jobs to starting her own virtual firm.
Yes, so I've been an accountant for most of my career. So I, you know, finished school, went to university, originally started actually studying economics, because it was a business degree. And you could do your different majors. And I started doing economics because I loved that at school. I've always loved numbers. Since I was a little kid, my favorite thing when I was a child to do was I had an older sister who's had have an older sister, she's
12 years old. So she used to do all these maths problems on my little chalkboard, and I'll sit there for hours, just you know, it was just like, over and over again. So I knew I always loved numbers, I decided not to do economics. So I decided to transition into accounting, because I thought that would be more me. So finished, that I it was a real big struggle to get through university as well.
Sorry, I wish I had known back then that I had ADHD made, it would have probably would have made it somewhat easier, started working as an accountant, which again, was really tough, not only the social aspect of you know, being around different people, but also, I learned very quickly that as much as I loved the job, I struggled with sitting at a desk all day, I struggled with being on all day.
So you know, working in accounting firms like you do really need to have that energy to be on not only with the work, but as I said, the social aspect, talking to people.
And that sustained attention to no one had to sit at a desk for eight hours a day. And doesn't make countin you're staring at a screen and spreadsheets, right?
Yep. Yeah, that's right. You have to sit and focus. Yeah, yeah. And at the time, you know, this was my first job was Gosh, I don't know, like, 14 No, it would have been more 17 years ago, I'm pretty sure my first job in accounting was so back then we didn't have a lot of the automations that we do. Now. There was a lot of data entry, a lot of mind numbing, just sitting there, you know, punching in numbers, which was
really difficult. And that just made me sort of go from job to job because I thought I don't fit in here. I'm going to try somewhere else. And now looking back, I realized that was just me, not necessarily not fitting in. It was just I can't sit here all day and do the same thing over and over again. So I went from job to job and eventually I just thought you Know what maybe accounting isn't for me, I love
the work, I love the job. But I can't sit at a desk all day and you know, be on all day talking to people who sit next to me and all that kind of stuff. So, which was really a bit of a sad moment. And I wish that I could go back and give myself a really big hug because I didn't realize that, you know, all those struggles were because I had undiagnosed ADHD. So I, you know, after I had my second child, I kind of left for a bit, I left the industry, I was on maternity leave anyway, but I
always missed it. I really missed the work. I missed talking to my clients. So I eventually got back into the industry. But again, it wasn't long before I started feeling the exact same way. And I was like, What is going on, lasted probably another three or four years before again, I left. And that was at the point where I had started on Instagram as well. So I'm like, You know what, I've got the opportunity to leave for a little bit and just see where this takes me. By
that point. I knew that I had ADHD I was diagnosed, I was recently diagnosed. And yeah, I just I had a bit of a break, which was really good. And then as my Instagram started taking off, people started asking me to help them with their business accounting, and their bookkeeping and their tax. And I was like, I'm not working in the industry at the moment, I can't help you. I wish I could. And that just kept coming in my DMs. I was like, Okay, there's
obviously a need here. And straightaway, my brain being the ADHD brain is went into action mode. It was like, Okay, what do I need to do to set myself up to help people? There's a need here? No, well, there's, you know, in Australia, there's maybe one, no two other firms that I know of, that are sort of niched towards neuro divergence. So I knew that there, you know, there's not a whole lot of help for ADHD, BPO, ADHD people, other neurodivergent people. Yeah, so went into action and
set everything up. Yeah, I started working for myself. And it was the one of the best decisions I have ever made. Because now I get to not only do what I love in the job, which is, you know, all the numbers stuff and helping people. But I get to work my own way. And that's looking back. Now, that's exactly what I needed. From day one, I needed to work my own way where I'm not sitting at a desk all day, I can get up early and do an hour of work before I go do other stuff, and then come
back to it. I can, you know, go out and do my groceries in the middle of the day, because I need a break, I can go take my dog for a walk. Like, it's so good that I just wish I had done this earlier. Totally.
¶ The importance of finding the right work environment with ADHD.
And I it's so powerful, what you're saying a lot of these things are so powerful. And I can't wait for people to hear this message. Because yesterday I was doing a webinar and people were saying what are some ADHD friendly jobs? First of all, I don't know many aviators who like accounting or bookkeeping, but you love it, and you just didn't
have the right environment. And that's what I was saying to them yesterday, like, you might be really skilled and be lit up by a task or a job, but just not have the right boss not have the right environment. And might be you might need a small environment, a large environment, working for yourself all these different things. So it's not always the job itself. It's everything else that comes with it.
Yeah, 100%. And, you know, I do I see people ask that all the time. And I just, that's one thing that I wish people would know is that we can do anything that we love as long as Yes, we do enjoy it. And we have the right environment. And if that's, you know, I know some accountants who do have ADHD that do that are successful working for somebody else in a firm. So again, we're all different, like, just because you've got ADHD doesn't mean that environment isn't going to
suit you. It's just understanding what is going to suit you. And, you know, go down that way.
Yeah. So you learned that you can help people in the ADHD community? How do you help them as an ADHD accountant,
a lot of the businesses and individuals that I work with, in my firm, you know, neurodivergent in some way, and there's lots of lots of different people, which I really love different backgrounds, which is really amazing. But I do also help people with their finances through financial education, financial consulting, because that was one of the other things that came up very quickly once my Instagram started to take off was that ADHD is feel a lot of shame
around there. So there was a lot of questions around that as well. So being able to help people with that is really amazing as well, just also seeing their journey. I've had some On one to one clients as well. And just seeing their journey from A to B and being a lot more savvy with their finances and feeling a lot better about them is just so amazing.
How do you I get this question all the time? You know, how do I budget? I've never looked at a budget? Where do I start? What would be some pieces of advice? I know you have a book coming out, too, that you're working on? What would be some, like just straight up? Start here? If you need to start a budget? Yeah.
¶ Tips for starting a budget when you have ADHD.
Gosh, this could be a podcast in itself. So I'll try to make this a bit more succinct. To me. It's really twofold. So it's, you've got the external things, and you've got the internal things. So yes, the external things is understanding how you can budget with your neurodivergent brain, that may look very different to the typical advice that's out there. At the moment, you know, the typical stuff is do this really fancy budget and budget for every dollar and everything goes, you know, somewhere.
Whereas for somebody with ADHD, it might just be as simple as starting with understanding where you're spending, which can be I know that can that sounds very easy. But for a lot of people that's really difficult, again, which typical financial advisors and financial coaches and consultants don't understand with ADHD is that even just knowing looking into our bank account, can use a lot of mental energy. But understanding where your money is going can be
really powerful. And you know, just automating some bills and understanding when those bills are due. It's not necessarily building out this amazing budget. Often, that's a lot of steps down the track. But often, that's where people start, they start with the budget before they understand everything else. And often, that's why we struggle to stick with them. Because we're like, Well, I'm spending all this money that's not in my budget, so therefore, I'm failing. And it's not that
people are failing. It's just that you started at step six, when you should have started that step one. So it's bringing back the
thing, always, it's that 1% rule of action and knowing where to start, you're not going to run the marathon, you got to put on your sneakers first. Yeah, all we see is I need to be $10,000 less in spending this month, or whatever if, yeah, that's greatly 100%.
Yeah, great. So that's, so that's the external stuff. But then there's also the internal stuff about, you know, understanding, you know, where you do get triggered around your finances, what triggers the spending, dealing with the shame that you might feel around money. So you know, all these internal things, which if we don't tackle that as well, that can come out in the spending, it can come out to, you know, not sticking to your budget not being able to earn more money in
your job or your business. So it's really twofold that we need to look at both things in order to achieve financial wellness.
¶ Managing the external and internal factors around finances.
100%. So like, breaking free from a scarcity mindset? What's holding you back there? Yeah. And then so like having that mindset shift, along with actual tools on knowing where you're spending your money? Exactly, do you recommend apps like mint, or honey books or QuickBooks to have an easier understanding of what you are spending?
Yes, if that works for the person, I am all for that. Some people love apps, some people don't like them. It's the same with spreadsheets, like a lot of budgets are on spreadsheets these days. Some people you know, love, that kind of thing. Some people don't even want to open a spreadsheet or look at it. So definitely, if the apps work for you, when it helps you categorize your spending, and it helps you look
into it. Sometimes apps are a little bit less daunting than actually going into your bank account to look at spending. So it's definitely worth trying. And that's the thing. I always tell people, it's worth trying. And if it doesn't work for you, that's okay. You haven't failed. It's just that something hasn't worked for you go on to the next thing.
¶ Using apps to track spending.
Yes. I love that don't get stuck on what's not working, try to think about the other options and having that growth mindset. Yes. So popular term, we've all heard it as ADHD tax. Where do you see within your outreach and you looking at spending that, you know, is a common thing for individuals with ADHD to forget about or you know, have that ADHD tax?
Forgotten subscriptions is a big one. people subscribe to stuff and they forget to cancel during the free trial and either they don't realize because they don't go into their bank account have Look what's coming out. Or they do realize, and they feel too much shame to go cancel it, or that's a lot of steps to actually go cancel it. So I've been in one to one coaching sessions where I've sat with the person, and we've gone through their subscriptions and
cancelled them together. So that can be really helpful for people as well as that if you're struggling with something like that, do some co working with somebody else. And while you're in that, you know, body doubling, I should say, while you're in that body doubling session, go through and have a look at your subscriptions and cancel them because that is the one of the biggest ADHD taxes
that I see with people. Other than that there's, you know, late fees for not paying bills on time, late fees for not taking library books back, for example. And then you know, the Forgotten food because you've bought food, you've put it in the fridge forgot about it or didn't feel like eating it. So you know, you've got all these food prepared fresh foods that you've got a yeah, that you've got to check it out. So they're the biggest ones that I see pop up all the time. Yeah,
¶ The "ADHD tax" of forgotten subscriptions and late fees.
and I know that I know, not everything is solved with apps. But there are some apps out there that help you see what subscriptions you have. Is that correct? Yeah,
I think there is I don't personally use any of those. But I do know that there are apps that help you see where your subscriptions are, I tell people a lot to you know, first step is to look at your Apple Store or Play Store, whatever frame you've got, because often that's where a lot of the subscriptions are subscribed to these apps. So you know, if you're struggling with something like that, just first step, just go on to that subscriptions app on your phone and just see
what's in there. And there could be you know, quite a bit that's in there coming out per month that you might not realize so, yeah, yeah,
I'm gonna be really vulnerable here. I had such a hard time creating a membership in my coaching practice, because of that very thing. ADHD tax. Yes. And I wanted to be very intentional with people about spending and spending on things that they legitimately want. That's why generally don't have people pay for and advanced. However, not everyone could afford our services. So I had to start a membership. But I probably do this. In a way that's not
beneficial for me. But hopefully, for the client, I literally check out like who's coming to the sessions, who's not and who's still paying month after month. And I'm like, personally sending them an email like, hey, what's happening here, you're not coming to these sessions, and you're still paying. And so often I get, that's okay, it's worth it. I want to pay, like, what is that? I'm just so curious about it. Like, are they feeling bad? Are
they getting value? And then sometimes I just take it upon myself to actually just go ahead and cancel them, because I don't want them spending the money if they're not using the services?
Hmm, yeah. Wow, that's really I've never heard someone say that before with their membership. I absolutely love that. And yeah, you're right, it could be a few different things. They, they really might be getting the value out of it. They're just not in there a lot. And I think it's one of those things where, you know, you can kind of see people trickle in every now and then it might be the fact that they do really value it. And so
they're happy to pay. But yeah, I mean, there might just be people that that that I'm saying they don't see the value I'm sure they absolutely do. But of course, there might be people that are like, Well, that's all I've ever known to just keep paying for memberships, but not use it. And that's in a way that does feel almost okay, because it's what we've known for a really long time. But I find that really, really interesting. And I love I love that you're
proactive with that. Because yeah, it might just be that some people just feel a lot of shame to say, actually, I do need to cancel because I can't afford this at this time, or whatever it is.
Yeah. And I think I think someone like you or coach or mentor a friend, that's where we really come into play with that one on one guidance and giving that person the space to like, see what's important, what's not. When I first started my coaching business, I had so many different CRMs because I didn't know which one to use. I had Kajabi I had Wix, I had Active Campaign AD coach accountable. It was paying these monthly fees, and I wasn't utilizing
everything to the max. Finally after like 1000s of dollars of mistakes, we finally put everything onto Wix and Active Campaign, but then it didn't really take much work to do it. But to stop yourself as an ADHD ear and say, let me actually look at this from a metacognitive DivX view and not spend this like money on the same things. It's hard.
It's really it is hot. Yeah, it is hot. And I'm fully transparent with people like even though I work in this space, I still have ADHD. So I get it like I'm not I'm not somebody who's come into this space and go oh, this is also a Easy like, why aren't you doing this? You know, it's easy to cancel stuff. It's easy to look at your finances. Yeah, it's 100%. Not that easy. But some things are, I totally
understand. And even myself, like, I still get myself into these situations where I have been paying for stuff for months and haven't used it or I struggled to cancel things. I've got one thing that I need to cancel at the moment, but I have to call them to cancel it. And I'm like, why that initiation online? Yeah, the initiation. And I know that once I call, it will be so simple, but it's that step to actually call them and go through those steps of saying it out loud. But I want to
cancel this. And then they're probably going to ask questions, and I just want to cancel it. And I Yeah, it's hard. And I still do, you know, the impulsive spending. But I'm much more these days, I'm much more aware of it. And I know how to get out of that spiral. And that's, that's what I hope to teach people. It's not that you're never going to impulsively spend before. It's not that you're never going to forget subscriptions, you've got ADHD, this is going to happen.
But it's getting out of that shame spiral. It's getting out of that spam spiral that is super important. Rather than trying to be perfect.
¶ Moving from perfectionism to self-compassion.
100% There is no such thing as perfect, right. And if you continue to try to achieve perfectionism, literally, it's funny, I was listening to Gary Vee this past week. And he was saying, people who try to be people pleasers are perfectionist, it's because one or two reasons, one, you don't want to grow. Or two, your ego is telling you that you could do it better than someone else, like as a business. So it's I never thought about it from that perspective before.
But it's so true. Like, when we can't get something out or whatever we think, you know, it's not just what other people are gonna think it's about, we think that we can do it better sometimes. And we don't want Yeah, yeah, mind blown. When I heard this,
that's really interesting. I love that that's something that I've actually learned recently about, you know, our ego and things like that, and how much it does play into things. It's super interesting. And I definitely want to do more research and looking into that, because it's so yeah, it is. It's mind blowing.
Yeah, yeah. I love how you mentioned the impulse spending to in my book, activate your ADHD potential, one of the steps is managing your dopamine because with ADHD, you know that our dopamine levels are above baseline or below baseline, they're not getting that consistent drip, like a neurotypical. And very often people can't take medication or their medication wears off. So they need to find ways naturally to regulate their
dopamine. And impulsive spending is going to give you that rush of dopamine that very often, we don't have, when we're overwhelmed, that's why we go and we buy all these subscriptions. And we go on Amazon and put things in our cart. And so how do you help people recognize because you said, there's no such thing as perfectionism, but how do you help people recognize when they are impulsively spending and how to help them? Manage it a little bit?
Yep. I help people recognize when they're doing it, when they can feel those urges. So they can feel those urges to buy things or buy something that they hadn't thought about before. Sometimes, and sometimes sometimes that's okay, you know, sometimes it is okay to just get that dopamine hit from spending, if it's within your budget, if it's something that you probably are going to use, I definitely don't shame people for, you know, doing things like that.
But recognizing those urges, and also recognizing the triggers as well, and then understanding when that starting to spiral. So it's very different to being like, it's, you know, Friday afternoon, I'm done with work, I just need that dopamine thing. I'm going to quickly impulsively buy something, and then walking away from the computer and you're done with it. But then you've got the spiral, where it's like, you can't stop. So it's like, I've bought something great. I'm gonna keep going.
Often. For me, that happens when I'm at the shops, because I don't know. It's just something about I don't know what it is. It's the environment and I will I'll just go shop it. Yeah. And then suddenly, I've got all these bags. I'm like, I've got to go to the car because I'm not going to stop here. I need to stop myself in some way. My bags
are not going to fit in the car. I am going to put the bags on top of the car. Yeah,
when I get to the point where I tell my husband, hey, can you just carry this? I'm like, Okay, I'm done now. Huh? But yeah, it's working. It's it's recognizing those sorts of things when it's It's like, okay, this is starting to spiral out of control, there's been something that's triggered you, it's you can feel those urges to keep going. And then you do keep going, you notice that, you know, you have started
to by quite a bit. So it's kind of recognizing those sorts of things to be like, Okay, this is starting to get out of my control, then, you know, putting the things into place to start to sort of stop that happening. Wonderful,
what would be the one thing that you would want people to know listening to this podcast to help them manage their ADHD and finances?
¶ Asking for help when you feel stuck.
I'm reaching out for help, I think is a really underrated thing to do. Because people often feel a lot of shame to reach out and be like, Hey, I'm actually struggling with this, to either vocalize it or to write it in an email or you know, a message to somebody's social media, that takes a lot of courage. And it takes it does, it takes a lot of mental energy to be like, I'm actually going to tell somebody else that I'm struggling with this. But often, that can be such an
amazing step. Because getting that support around whether it's just your ADHD or you know, as well as your finances can be so amazing, because you can start to understand, as I said, those triggers, you can start to understand those urges and recognize them. And you can really start to get a picture of what's going to work for you. There's a lot of noise on social media. And some of its great some of it does work for a lot of ADHD is, but there's a lot of things that I've noticed that
don't. And we can spend a lot of time having a look on social media and finding things that work for other people. And again, you know, when we start trying a lot of different things that don't work, we start to think that, you know, perhaps we're failing or going to work. Yeah, whilst that's good to try different things. It's also really good to get an understanding of what your individual triggers are, what your individual ADHD looks like.
So you can work with somebody to, you know, get some help. Quicker.
Yeah, you know, I, my husband always says you're going to pay one way or another with time, energy failure, or you pay someone to help you see things quicker and get unstuck. And not everyone is there yet. Sometimes we need to fall flat on our face and try a million different things until we get to that point of emotion where we're like, oh, I need help. But yes, you're gonna pay one way or another. And I also want to just say one quick
thing. Every time I ask this question to anyone who comes on this successful with ADHD podcast, what's one thing they can never say? Just one thing? It's always like 234 things. So anyway, maybe I need to change around the question. But, Tina, thank you so much for coming on. And waking up early in Australia. If people want to get help for their finances and get counting help, where can they find you?
So I always tell people, the best place is my Instagram, which is at the ADHD accountant, because that will give you links to basically everything else. I do have a website that you can go to, which is ADHD. money.co. Actually think about that for a second. But as I said, if you go to my Instagram, you'll find all those links. And you know, it will link to also my accounting firm here in Australia, if anyone is in Australia. And yeah, I'd love to chat to people.
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming on the successful with ADHD podcast, and helping us manage our money or finances and giving us these quick tips today. I'm sure a lot of people will be reaching out to you shortly.
Thank you so much. I've enjoyed our chat. Thanks
for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey. And if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at coaching with brooke.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke and remember, it's Brooke with any Thanks again for listening. See you next time.