Sometimes I have money and still pay an overdraft fee.
I’ll go on a trip, put money aside, and tell myself, Here’s the budget. I mean it. But me and budgets don’t work particularly well together.
I don’t keep checking the account I’m spending from. I might have money somewhere else that I could transfer over. Then a charge goes through, and I get the text from the bank telling me it’s too late.
Open the app. Check the balance. Transfer the money.
It sounds easy. So why didn’t I do it?
The part I don’t like admitting
I don’t always want to look at my bank account.
It’s not necessarily because I think there’s no money. I don’t want to open the app and immediately hear my own thoughts:
You only have this much left?
Bro, you really spent that much?
Sometimes I forget to check. Sometimes I remember and put it off because I don’t want to feel that shame. Moving money is an easy fix in theory, but by then it feels like several steps I don’t want to deal with.
I’m pretty sure overdraft fees have cost me hundreds of dollars over the last couple of years. I haven’t added them all up. I don’t particularly want to open my account and do that, either.
That’s one version of the ADHD tax. It’s an informal name for the extra costs that can come from things like forgetting, putting off a task, or making a purchase you didn’t think through. The cost might be a bank fee. It might be something you bought and barely used.
Mine isn’t always about an empty account. Sometimes the money is there, and I still don’t make the transfer in time.
The cameras in storage
I like vlogging when we go on trips. I still do it.
I started filming with my iPhone 12, but I wasn’t happy with the quality. So I got a GoPro. That was better, but I still wanted something better. Then I bought a DJI Osmo Pocket 3.
The picture looked nice. I didn’t like the way the camera head at the top would rotate unexpectedly, though. Eventually I got a newer iPhone, and that’s what I use to vlog now.
Somewhere in storage in Richmond, Texas, are the other cameras. Along with the filters and bags I bought for them.
I can see why I made each purchase at the time. I wanted my videos to look good. But I also recognize the rush of getting into something, buying the setup for it, and only later finding out what I’ll actually use.
I didn’t stop caring about vlogging. I ended up with a collection of gear I don’t use.
Tuesday’s dinner wasn’t in the plan
Food gets me, too.
I’ll buy groceries with a plan to cook for the whole week. At the store, I’m hopeful. I can picture myself making all those meals.
By Tuesday, I’m at Chipotle getting a bowl with double chicken.
The groceries are still at home. Maybe I’ll cook them later. Maybe some of them will go bad. Either way, I’ve spent money on the plan and on the meal I bought instead.
Then there’s rush shipping. Apparently, a phone case arriving in two days can feel necessary enough for me to pay extra for it. I know I could wait longer. In the moment, I don’t want to.
An overdraft fee, unused camera gear, food that doesn’t get cooked, shipping I didn’t need to rush—none of these looks exactly alike. They still end with me spending more than I meant to.
“Just set a reminder” doesn’t finish the job
I know some of the advice. Check my account regularly. Buy groceries for fewer days. Leave something in the cart before deciding whether to buy it.
An ADHD coach could tell me those things, and they wouldn’t be wrong. The hard part is doing them when they matter, over and over.
A reminder to check my account still leaves me with opening an app I’ve been avoiding. A grocery plan still has to survive whatever Tuesday looks like. Waiting before a purchase still requires me to pause when I really want the thing now.
That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to make any of this easier. For the overdraft fees, I could look at whether my bank offers an alert before my balance gets too low, or a way to transfer money automatically. I’d need to check the terms, because bank options and fees vary. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains overdraft choices if you’re dealing with the same thing.
I just don’t want to pretend that knowing a solution and consistently using it are the same step. If they were, those cameras wouldn’t be in storage, and I probably wouldn’t know my Chipotle order by heart.