@homohabilis117 TLDR; work on delaying gratification, set small goals, track all of your spending closely, reduce spending in non/essential categories incrementally, and frame financial health as a priority in taking care of yourself overall.
I also have ADHD and have had to build up resistance to impulse gratification. One way I delay gratification is to save things I want to a Pinterest board or a wishlist instead of buying it immediately.
Honestly, getting rid of Amazon altogether is a huge help too. It’s designed expressly to encourage impulse shopping. It’s the shopping equivalent of TikTok. Use other websites to order things when you have to but forcing yourself to go to a store and physically buy something may be enough of a deterrent for some impulse buys.
Paying off debt over time was satisfying but only when I stopped using my credit cards for a long time. Eventually I loved watching the balance go down every month. I used a visual debt payoff sheet to mark off each increment of $50 or $100. It takes time for the satisfaction to set in, just keep going.
With savings, it’s even harder to build up the same amount of satisfaction we get from a shiny new thing but it does happen over time. Again, set small goals. Make your first goal $500 or $1000 emergency fund. I won’t tell you to reward yourself with buying something you want. I think making the reward about the bigger picture, like the desire to be debt free or to be able to cover a large unexpected expense, is more productive in the long run. You kind of have to make it its own reward. That just comes with gaining momentum from seeing that savings balance increase or the credit card balance decrease. For things you really want, refer to your wishlist and work it into your budget—carve it out as an expense instead of just coming out of “what’s left” every month.
We went from living paycheck to paycheck with ~$18k in credit card debt to having three months’ expenses in savings and $1700 in credit card debt in about 5 years. That’s with having much less than $1000 leftover every month. Tracking income and expenses was critical.
Audit your non-essential spending. Look at your bank statements for 2022, categorize each line item for every month, and really look at where your spending is going. It will probably shock you. Average out how much you spend on eating out, Amazon crap, app subscriptions, whatever. Set limits for yourself. Even if that’s just spending $50 or $100 less in each category and earmarking that money for extra CC payments.
If you’re not going to earn more money, it has to be reallocated and it has to be your decision to do so. Set a budget for spending categories and update the remaining amount every single day. There are apps but I find doing it in a spreadsheet like you balance a checkbook is much more accurate and you don’t miss pending transactions you might’ve forgotten about.
Seeing how much money we threw away on eating fast food we couldn’t even remember was eye opening. We went from $500 on eating out every month to $200. We barely noticed the change; fast food wasn’t adding any value to our lives but the extra money towards credit card debt has made a huge difference. We buy a lot of the same foods we were grabbing at fast food places and just make it at home. Frozen Arby’s curly fries, stuffed crust pizza, chicken tenders, whatever. An air fryer made a lot of those more convenient and tastier at home.
Being able to pay for car repairs and medical bills out of pocket without payment plans or using credit cards has also been a huge boost to my motivation for saving.
Growing up, every expense was treated like it was unexpected. My parent was a gambling addict and was always in the hole. It was a constant juggling act to cover the electric bill, time hot checks to be deposited on different days, borrow enough from someone to cover a debt payment, scrape up enough change from the floorboard of the car to buy toilet paper.
Even as a kid, it was so exhausting and scary. I grew up without a healthy relationship with money modeled by the adults around me. It’s a big part of how I ended up in debt myself.
Maybe you’ve never been in that situation but the absence of the anxiety that used to come with any unexpected expense, big or small, because I put in the time and effort to plan ahead, is invaluable to me. It isn’t just about the money or having things, it’s about taking care of myself. Prioritize taking care of yourself, OP.