In this episode of The Distracted Dollar, Vanessa Dean discusses the unique financial challenges faced by individuals with ADHD. She highlights five key traits that contribute to financial chaos: impulsivity, time blindness, emotional dysregulation, and executive dysfunction. Vanessa offers practical strategies to manage these traits, such as the 24-hour rule for impulsive purchases, creating a 'bill birthday' to manage time blindness, and building a money container system to combat executive dysfunction. The core message is to design a financial system that works with the ADHD brain rather than against it.

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Takeaways

This isn't a personal failure; it's a neurological mismatch.

Your brain was built for immediate rewards, not managing money.

Impulsivity is driven by the brain's dopamine system.

The 24-hour rule helps create space for conscious choices.

Time blindness leads to financial surprises and stress.

Externalizing the system can help manage time blindness.

Emotional spending is a temporary escape, not a solution.

Build an emergency feel-good kit to replace spending habits.

Traditional budgeting is often torturous for the ADHD brain.

Create a money container system to simplify financial management.

Chapters

00:00 Understanding ADHD and Financial Chaos

02:46 Impulsivity and the 24-Hour Rule

06:10 Time Blindness and Financial Awareness

08:56 Emotional Spending and Building Resilience

11:48 Executive Dysfunction and Alternative Budgeting Strategies

Managing money with ADHD is not a discipline problem. It is a systems problem.

The Distracted Dollar is a podcast for individuals with ADHD who want to stop feeling overwhelmed, ashamed, or stuck with money and start building calm, clear, ADHD-friendly financial systems.

Hosted by Vanessa Dean, a financial coach with ADHD, this podcast explores the real connection between ADHD and money. Topics include impulsive and emotional spending, time blindness, executive functioning challenges, financial identity, and why traditional budgets do not work for ADHD brains.

Each episode offers practical strategies, simple systems, and mindset shifts designed to work with your brain, not against it. No shame. No rigid rules. No financial jargon that makes you want to shut down.

This podcast is not about perfection or overnight success.
It is about realistic progress, confidence with money, and moving from chaos to control, one step at a time.

If you have ever avoided your bank app, struggled to stick to a budget, or felt like everyone else understands money except you, you are not broken. You are in the right place.

New episodes every other week.