The Vault with Financielle - UNLOCKED: Managing Money with a Neurodivergent Brain (ADHD, Autism & More)

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Send us a text💸 Welcome to The Vault Unlocked – the bonus series of The Vault where we deep dive into the big money topics no one wants to talk about.Today, we’re talking about money and neurodivergence. Whether you have ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia or another condition under the neurodiversity umbrella, managing money can feel overwhelming—but that doesn’t mean you can’t take control. 💪From impulse spending to forgetting bills, we’re breaking down the real challenges neurodivergent people face when it comes to money—and the practical strategies that actually work. ❤️In this episode, we cover:Why executive dysfunction, dopamine-seeking and decision fatigue can mess with your money 💸The hidden costs of everyday life when your brain works differently 🫣The unique strengths of neurodivergent thinkers when it comes to finances 💪How the Financielle Method is designed to work with your brain, not against it 🤝Real-life stories and step-by-step tips to help you take action 🤩💬 Your challenge: Try one small tip this week—whether it’s setting a 48-hour rule before spending or doing a 5-minute budget check-in. Test what works for your brain. 🧠Need support from people who get it? Join our community in the app. No shame, no judgement—just real talk.💬 Got a topic you’d love us to unlock next? Email us at [e-mail]👉 Subscribe to Financielle for honest, practical conversations about money. Let’s make your money work for you.The Vault is an entertaining yet thought provoking podcast that answers our community’s dilemmas and confessions surrounding women and money.Visit https://www.financielle.com to download our app.Watch the podcast on YouTube.Follow Financielle for more:▶︎ TikTok▶︎ InstagramAbout Financielle:Financielle is a female focussed finance app helping women to take back control of their money, ditch debt, increase savings and invest in their future.Recorded and Produced by Liverpool Podcast Studios▶︎ Web ▶︎ Instagram▶︎ LinkedIn

Welcome to The Vault Unlocked, where I take a deep dive into money topics that no one wants to talk about. Happy Monday, Team Financial. I hope you're doing absolutely amazing. And I have to say, I'm feeling very uplifted. God, that's quite a fluffy word for me really, isn't it? But just energized by what you guys are achieving right now. You're all on your own journeys. You're all doing your own thing.

You're all at different stages. But oh my God, are you killing it? And before we come on to the topic of today's Vault Unlocked, I actually wanna deep dive into the community in the app. And so for those that don't know, if you are just Vault listeners and you may not have been aware, but we do have the Final Shell app,

we created it a couple of years ago now to kind of be that focus point for your money journey. So whether that be to kind of read content, do some of your tracking or chat in the community, it is that one stop shop, that place for all things financial and more importantly for all things your money. We've been lucky enough to be featured several times

as app of the day, both here and in other countries. Although I'm not going to say lucky. Is that a female thing to say? And like we've earned that right to be in there. We've with a very, very modest budget and extremely small team. We've worked hard to build an app around what you need. You know, it's not like a banking gap. It's not like an investment app.

It's not an education app. It is a lifestyle and money app that can help you track your money and manage your life and not make it feel like work or feel like you have to do a course or do exams or questions or just to learn just enough and so obviously that's what the app's for. We've obviously got the free version and the premium, and the premium still is so accessibly priced. It's meant to be there to encourage you, especially annually, because you need to do two, three, four budgets

in this thing to really get the value from it for sure. And one of the benefits of doing the free trial and then getting premium is community. The playbooks in there in light form, you can actually do the intense playbook course actually. In fact, there's usually a discount code for the playbook, the digital course with all the videos and all the worksheets and stuff

that is in the description of podcast. So have a little look because it's usually a cheeky discount code there. But there's a lighter version of that with the premium subscription as well. Now with the free subscription, you can read all the content, the regular content, the daily blogs that we put in there.

You can track your goals such as your debt payoff, which is incredibly important to us. You can track your regular goals. You can track sinking goals such as your debt pay off, which is incredibly important to us. You can track your regular goals. You can track sinking funds in there actually. That was a new thing we added last year. In fact, a hidden area. It's not hidden, it's just, it's a little hidden. You can get to it from the bottom.

Bottom right on your app is Life Admin. That's where you can track all your policies for things, these fixed expenses that come up for renewals, especially when you wanna shop around and you wanna get a good deal, we will remind you, that app reminds you when they're coming up for renewal, but like I think maybe a month before or something like that,

and then again right before. I am thinking about adding a checklist in that area. I don't know what you think. I love being sneaky and on the unlocked, revealing what we're thinking and getting your feedback. We are looking at no spend tracker, that's one thing we're gonna do, but we're also interested in a notes area in the budget

because you might need to do extra fiddly things with your budget, you know, it might be that you wanna track something extra, mention something, you might wanna track birthdays that happened that month, events, just different things that can help explain why a budget was set up in a particular way. I know I would find that helpful and so I'd love to know what you think because I think we should put a notes area in the bottom of each budget but life admin when we talk about life admin the

tracking of the policies is just one element to it. Sometimes there's your current account switches that you wanna do. You might wanna do your tax return ahead of time or you might wanna make sure that you remember to transfer money over to investments, whatever it is. Put LifeAdmin, I think a checklist would be good. So let me know what you think, but LifeAdmin, another free area.

Then we move over obviously to the premium stuff. So budget and net worth, incredibly important. Your budget is your tool to manage your regular money and to create that excess every budget so that you are putting it towards the stage that you're writing the playbook. So are you paying down debt? Are you building up emergency savings?

Are you saving for a home? Are you investing extra over and above the minimum that you should be doing? Whatever it is, you create that excess in the budget and do that. The net worth is where we track our longer term progress. So for those of you who are more heavily weighted towards stocks and shares at the moment, ouch.

It's been an interesting Q1, hasn't it, since what's kind of happening in the States. For you guys that are listening that are over there, you know, it's a very, very turbulent time, isn't it? And the market is constantly trying to work out what's happening. And so for those of us that are, you know, well in advance of retirement and not there yet,

it's one of those blips, just like COVID was a bit of a blip and then we had a really big boom for tech after that, our retirement portfolios will be feeling it, but it's kind of a not to worry, just sit and leave it because we're not planning on retiring anytime soon or being able to get access to that money anytime soon anyway. So one way I look at it is the stock market's on sale right now. If you're using that portfolio down, then when you make this month's contribution, you're actually going to be buying stocks when the market isn't in its best place, which technically is one of the best times to buy.

Obviously at Financial, we talk about not timing the market and not intentionally taking advantage of a dip. This might not be the dip, there might be more dips. We talk about pound or dollar cost averaging, which is history shows us that mathematically just by spreading out our investments investing little and often as regularly as possible you end up doing better than trying to time the market necessarily so if you're seeing that looking low you're not on your own but don't worry about it and just keep doing you keep focusing on you but that's our net worth tracker. After that that brings us to, and what I wanna talk about today a little bit,

is the community. So the community was something that, we started on Instagram, and what was very big about community on Instagram was this like one-dimensional exchange. So it was you sharing things with us and us DMing you back, and then where possible and where we could

anonymize it we would then share that anonymously with the wider Instagram community which is great because you all know my views on stories. It's your stories that help inspire someone else whether it's like you know a sad story where things might have gone wrong or maybe there was lessons to learn or there could be happy, happy stories. You know, I like the Hollywoods, like the going through the adversity and coming out the other side, and us all being able to rally around

and feel good about that person. The stories inspire us and drive us to do more. Massive motivation, I am so driven by people and their stories. And so the community was just very one dimensional. We could share a little bit, but we couldn't facilitate communication and conversation between you guys really well.

And so for those of us that were here early days, we did move on to a forum space, but this was while we were building the app. And we did put it in the original version of the app as a link, but it wasn't very, it was very easy to navigate. It was definitely a bit clunky and scrappy but we're all about scrappy things don't have to be shiny and perfected they just let us provide people a space which then moves on to the community in app at the moment. Again you know it's not perfect there's definitely things that we wish we could do with it but the community is the space where you guys can interact with each other and help each other.

For those of you who choose not to be premium and want to still be a part of the community, I appreciate you'll miss out on some of the gems. We try and share them on social. We try to share them on the vault with the girls as well. I know that some people email in community wins, but sometimes they're from the community. So I thought I'm gonna bring you into the world with me

and share a couple from literature this week because we've not long since gone through payday and people have been achieving some amazing things. So let's go through some. This one is, I love this one. And I think this is the one that actually motivated me to say actually at the beginning of this episode, let's share some stories. A little win from me this week.

This just shows how grateful I am to Financial because I never and the never's in capitals usually post in community pages. I'm more the silent watcher, but I just had to share. On Monday, I had to pay an unexpected £102 car bill. A few months ago this would have felt like the end of the world and I'd be putting myself in debt to cover. Well, not this time. This time I was able to use the money I have saved in my car maintenance sinking fund. Amazing! Oh she's written that. This felt amazing. This felt amazing to have the option to do this. And rather than panicking, it was more an inconvenience.

Since joining financial only a month ago, don't worry, I have now paid for a year subscription because I can't imagine life without it. I have increased my net worth by 37.5%. Actually created and paid into the sinking funds funds I always promised myself I'd start, paid my credit card off in full and got a clearer idea of where my money's going and where I want it to go. This may seem small to some, but it honestly has helped so much and I feel like I am on the way to financial independence, which at one time only felt like a dream.

It's so nice to see everyone's wins and questions in the community too. Just absolutely blown away. I mean, some of the comments that some of our amazing members have said back are things like, well done for sharing, amazing progress, sinking funds are a game changer. People, sinking funds do save lives, they so do.

People just so proud of this person for firstly, like sharing widely, like they're obviously quite a private person and not everyone's a, you don't have to be a poster, you can be a lurker, lurkers are very welcome. I've heard lurker and I've heard voyeur as well, I kind of like voyeur a bit more. But it just shows the change that can happen within a month.

You are motivated enough to make a change, whether that be to get rid of this debt that's been around for such a long time or to start investing the scary I word and not feel too intimidated by it. Then you can make really quick progress. You can. It's massive how quickly you can turn things around. So that was the inspiration for sharing a couple more, and I'm gonna share a couple more because I feel like you'd want it.

People sharing net worth graphs, I like that, I'll show you mine if you show me yours. On the net worth, you can hide the figures as well, so there is a way to be able to create the graph and show percentage growth and not reveal figures, some people like showing figures, it's completely up to you. And someone else put, feels absolutely amazing to be nearly at that halfway mark.

We've increased our income together and thrown all the extra money at debt and I feel like I can finally see the finish line and that all those sacrifices we've made are paying off. And this poster has shown screenshots of the debt as well, which is amazing. Let me get another couple a little win this morning. Klarna permanently closed. Yes forever it is gone buy buy

buy and sync style and Capital One card of 15 years with £1450 debt closed too. Still need to tackle car finance £8000 on car on car finance, 1500 on virgin credit card, but feeling good that dopamine hit is amazing. Can we talk about the Capital One credit card because most relationships don't last 15 years. We don't, you know, that is someone that's been in your life a long time. That must have been a big deal. Congratulations. Well done for getting win, getting rid of that debt.

That is not a little win. That is a big win. People are saying, absolutely smashing it. Another one, someone said, is it bad that I got into bed tonight and realized I hadn't done my end of month net worth calculations and was so excited to see how it had grown that I had to get back up again

and do it, lol, who even am I? You absolute legend, you are smashing it. I just, I don't know about you, I get such a buzz from these stories. So go there to see more for yourself, share your experience. It really is so uplifting, because this stuff is hard

and it doesn't happen overnight. Like this is an evolution, this is a journey. Yes, I've used the J word, but I'm here for it. So thank you to those of you who contributed those things into the community that I shamefully lifted and used to share with the wider Fanshell community. I really, really appreciate it. And again, I just know it's gonna inspire someone

to take that next step in their money journey. So I'm gonna move on now to the topic of today's podcast, like the focus topic, and we're talking about money and neurodivergence. I'm gonna caveat this episode with the fact that it is clear that I'm not an expert in this space. I'm not gonna talk about the medical side of it, I'm not gonna talk about diagnosis.

All I'm gonna share is the experience that we've had as a team speaking to you, speaking to our customers, and then some additional research that then we did on top of that to spot these kind of patterns with the way some people with what they would say are neurodivergent tendencies and the issues that they have with managing money, the positive and the negative sides to managing money. So whether you have ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or any other condition that's under the neurodiversity umbrella,

you will know you better than anyone else. You will know how you operate, you will know how your condition, as diagnosed or not, will influence your life, and more importantly, how it could be influencing your money. And I have to admit, I was reluctant to do this episode initially, because I don't want to profess to be an expert in this space,

and I don't want to lead anyone to feel like they have to go get a diagnosis or do anything in particular. But I couldn't escape the patterns we were seeing and the life-changing realizations that some of our community had had. And so for that reason, that's why this is only a smaller part of the episode. We've done a big episode, obviously on community wins, but I wanted to nod towards some of the things that we've seen and I just, you could be listening to this,

whether you are diagnosed or not in this space, but you may listen to it and go, wow, actually, that does sound like me and you've just made me feel better. You guys know one of our specialities is talking about managing money and making it less overwhelming. And so that's the goal of this pod. Again, as I said, whether you are someone with a formal diagnosis or

you're just you and you would like some extra help. Being neurodivergent or having neurodivergent tendencies brings with it a set of different perspectives and strengths, but it can also bring challenges. Neurodivergence can lead to impulsive spending, being poor at planning, creating extra stress and worry. And obviously we are generalizing this because we are all wonderful individuals and we're all very different. But you may, like I said, listen to something and spot something that you're experiencing or a friend or family member experiencing and see a strategy

that you can use to help navigate that. Some common struggles that people experience are things like trouble with planning, remembering tasks, managing time. This is actually called executive dysfunction, which I find hilarious as a term, but you can understand what that means. It might be impulsive spending for dopamine hits.

It might be overspending on conveniences that deliver as it taxes. It could be struggling to track expenses or sticking to budgets. The flip side though to some of these struggles are some amazing strengths actually that I've definitely seen firsthand in the financial community.

There can be a hyper focus on saving or financial goals and you will absolutely just go all in. There's often creative problem solving for when someone has a financial struggle or a setback and I think with this creative problem solving you very much do get like an entrepreneurial thinking. The creative problem solving combined with this like you know commercial strategy even, this ability to think outside the box rather than stay in the lines is a massive one for me. And ultimately I think the traditional ways of managing money or thinking about budgets

and thinking about personal finance very much more suits people that like to stay within the lines and that don't have neurodivergent tendencies. And so for the rest of us, the collective of us, you know, we feel like it's a square peg in a round hole and it really, really doesn't need to be. We've seen loads of you share the hidden costs of actually having to manage conditions like this. Paying late fees for bills and things because they've forgotten due dates for these bills. Buying

multiple replacements of lost items, is it iPhone chargers scattered around the country or even the world? Subscription services that are just forgotten and left unused. It could be last minute spending due to poor planning. I'm thinking like the suntan lotion at the airport and paying the premium for that rather than being able to plan ahead and do it ahead of time. And I've said the D word dopamine already, but it's so gamified nowadays with technology, with social media,

we crave that hit and I do find it getting worse for people and you know buying things, eating things, consuming things, spending money on things is such a guaranteed way to get that dopamine hit that it does lead to a lot of financial troubles for people because they're just chasing you know this this feel-good feeling. And I think ultimately this is why the financial method has completely not intentionally helped people that do have these kinds of struggles because it gives them a strategy and a plan and a format

that can be as intense as they want it to be or as they are feeling, whether that be because of the time of day that it is, the time of month that it may be for that person, or just whether they're in a good place or not a great place, it gives them a framework that should still work. They can kind of go as intense as they want to,

or they can pull back and have a little bit of time off the accelerator pedal. If you think about it, the Money Playbook, the step-by-step plan, gives step-by-step guidance without overwhelming everyone with everything at the beginning, without making people feel they have to learn everything about everything. The app element does give you that tick box

and instant gratification for completing certain steps. Once you nail the budgeting tool, so once you've done one and you can use that copy functionality and just rinse and repeat, it is then super easy to use and really gives you a clear picture, especially with the budget donor, of where your money is,

it's not in this big, long spreadsheet. And obviously we've got community, this helps with accountability, it's a judgment-free zone, it's very supportive. Lots of people are having intense moments that they need help with and lots of people are congratulating others and it's just such a safe space

for someone who may have ups and downs or may not be able to stick to things rigidly. I've actually got a little story to share from the community, this is Elsie's story. I'm on a good wage but I have a treat yourself mentality which I now understand is my brain seeking dopamine. Last year I was worse off financially than I had been in years due to constant impulse buying.

I've been using financial for four months and I'm close to paying off three of my first debts. The simplicity of financial has been a game changer. It's a proper workhorse product and it's helped me regain control. There's even a little dopamine hit when I update my budget and see I've spent less than expected. This is a perfect example, I'll say, of someone flipping the script

and making the dopamine hit work for them. We've talked about that with no spend challenges before as well, actually. There's lots of good blogs on that on the web and in the app, but how you can create those mini dopamine hits from saving and from not spending. But I think ultimately we've definitely found that instead of conforming to the traditional ways

of managing money, you can tailor this system to fit in with how you operate, what your money personality's like, what your partner's like. And there are so many different practical hacks that you can use. For example, let's say that you are someone who struggles with impulsive spending.

You're seeking the dopamine, you regret it later, it's like a vicious circle. So if you do buy things, whether it be because you're bored, whether it because you like the thrill of spending, whether it's that you're stressed, and then you go on to regret it later, one strategy that we have seen community members use is to actively seek to reduce impulsive spending.

One way is to put a pause between you and the actual spending. This involves setting a 48 hour rule, purchases over 20 pounds, and adding it to a wish list on your phone instead. Another strategy for this pause is using the future you test. So trying to say to yourself, would I want this in two weeks?

Would I choose to buy this in two weeks time? Or is this an in the moment thing? And another strategy for putting the pause between you and their spending is using technology to help you. So can you use apps that block these trigger apps for you during the hours that you're at your weakest? If you are doing this impulsive spending at night, is that the time that you need to back off social media?

Can you use these app blockers to do it? Can you remove the payment information from lots of websites or from your like computer systems? I know it helps us and it's practical, but it's designed to make us spend more, it really is. Another issue that people may have is struggling with routine. Are you forgetting bills?

Are you losing track of spending and not realizing that you're going way over in one category, for example? The things that we have seen help people stay on track involve one, automating as much as you can, moving all your bills and direct debits to the beginning of the month, making sure that your savings or investments

or debt payoffs, whatever you're doing, whichever stage of the playbook that you're in, you bring that forward to the beginning of the month. Number two is creating a low maintenance budgeting system for staying on track. This involves trying to plan to use that budgeting tool whenever you get paid, sometimes just using it the once and setting out those categories and making sure

it's all, once you've done the work once, honestly, it's just, it's the game changer. Making sure that the pots are all ready to go, you then don't have to go back into the budgeting tool if you don't want to. You've set your categories, you've set your boundaries, you've set your pots, and then you can go. And some people actually shared that they switch,

especially the discretionary spending, to weekly, not monthly. So if you get paid monthly, but you have a tendency to overspend in a particular area, just split the areas into weeks. So is it fuel, is it grocery? Coffee is eating out, fun money. Bring it down on a weekly basis

and so that you don't feel like you've got this like flush, you know, loads of money to spend at the beginning of the month and then you're struggling at the end. And I've seen this happen for so many people, they've said we've switched to weekly and it was a game changer. Another struggle that a lot of our community members have

and I can absolutely profess to have the same is the struggle just forgetting things. I think firstly, I just wanna say, oh my God, is it any wonder we forget things? There is so much to remember nowadays. And you may think by having like emails, you can search the emails easily. No, I'm convinced that my email inbox

does not want me to find the email that I wanted. It's really easy to forget when things are coming up for renewal. I especially struggle when it's manual things like, you know, whether it's like, I wear the, my daughter's dance fees are quite manual and I'm just rubbish at remembering I think the rainbows that she was going to was like an ad hoc payment once in a while and it's just so easy to forget. And so firstly we have to give ourselves a break and say this stuff is hard, there's a lot to manage. It's a full-time job just managing the admin for this. And sometimes it can be like death by tool.

There are a million different trackers, there are a million different ways that we can set ourselves reminders. So I think it is important to embrace technology. Take the time, do the research, find the things that you're struggling with and see if there's a really cool way that I'm sure your phone can help you with more

than you actually use it for. How do you use reminders? Are there better ways to do reminders than you're currently doing them? When is the right time for you to sit aside and do some life admin? Do you collect it all together in a list and then set it for the time that you know you perform?

Are you an early bird? Are you an eye towel? Is there a Sunday morning with a cup of tea the right time for you to do these things that just when you're on the go in the week you look at you go I'll do that in a minute. I've definitely benefited from that. My to-do list is forever growing and just having somewhere where I go bam bam bam and I hit off those things it really really helps. I remember years ago my mum telling me about the one touch theory which was something that I really tried to use throughout obviously

my career as a lawyer initially and as a business owner, but I have to admit being a business owner and mum, and digital as well, like we're always on our phones managing our life, our businesses, our finances, it's super easy to put things off and think I'll do that later. But the one touch theory is about

if a task appears in front of you, and it can be done within a certain period of time, like between 20 seconds and 10 minutes, 15 minutes, it's probably worth trying to do it then and getting it off your plate then adding it to the to-do list because then the to-do list becomes an admin thing. And we do always overthink how long things

will actually take. We often overestimate these smaller tasks and we put them off and then we think they're gonna be hard. And then ultimately they're not. And so the one touch theory is a great thing to use to if something, a bill comes in, it needs to be paid, pay it, take the time, take two, three minutes,

get it paid because it's gone then and you've absolutely done it. One of the reasons that we built the life admin tool in the app is because it is so hard to remember when these things are due and who else needs paying and oh I need to shop around and get a good deal. Oh, that's an extra burden that I have to do on top of all this. And so having things diarized and reminding you when they're coming up for renewal means that you can grab that car insurance at the cheapest rate at the cheapest time that it's available. And so hopefully by trying to implement these smaller strategies, they can help with this overwhelming burden that is life admin nowadays.

But I think ultimately the best thing I've seen in our community is people accepting that we're all different and you have to find what feels good for you. And with a loose structure and with a framework and understanding that we're not all the same and we do react differently, whether it like said certain times of day, of month, of the year or just because of certain tasks that may feel overwhelming

there are little strategies that you can use to help make things that bit easier or more digestible so that we can quite frankly live our best life and not get bogged down in the life admin of being an adult today. If you are someone that has been diagnosed as neurodivergent or if you feel that you have neurodivergent tendencies or quite frankly, if it's just overwhelming and you don't feel that you will fit into those categories,

you can win with money, but you can do it your way. But given we clearly have, you know, a large amount of people that do have this kind of struggle in our community, please do share your experiences, whether it's emailing in to the vault at fanchelle.com, whether you DM us on Instagram, or you drop a message into the community. You can also write fan mail.

We can't respond back to that, which is a bit problematic sometimes. So sorry if you feel like we can't respond back, but feel free to send us fan mail via Spotify. What strategies do you have that you could share that could help make people feel less overwhelmed? Send them us, we will share them. That is it for today's The Vault episode, thank you for indulging me and letting me share these amazing wins that we have seen from you guys as ever. If you've anything you want us to cover send us an email into the vault

at financial.com please do continue to subscribe to the vault and to follow and to share with your friends and whatsapp groups and just a disclaimer the vault unlocked is a light hearted chat around life and money we are not giving financial advice bye bye