When traditional money systems don’t fit your brain
A lot of people arrive at financial coaching carrying a quiet, heavy belief that they’re simply “bad with money”.
They may have tried budgets before. They may have downloaded apps, bought notebooks, set up spreadsheets, read books, watched videos or promised themselves that this month will be different. Yet still, somehow, it doesn’t stick.
Bills get missed. Spending feels hard to track. Numbers blur into one another. Financial admin gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. Important letters or emails go unopened. Good intentions disappear under the weight of day-to-day life.
For some people, this isn’t because they don’t care. It’s not because they’re lazy or irresponsible, or because they’re somehow lacking in willpower. It may simply be that the way they’ve been told to manage money doesn’t really work for the way their brain works.
Money and neurodivergence
Over the years, I’ve worked with many clients who are neurodivergent, whether they have a diagnosis of ADHD, autism, dyscalculia or another form of neurodivergence, or whether they are still in the process of making sense of themselves.
Sometimes they arrive already knowing that their brain works differently. Sometimes the financial coaching process itself helps them begin to notice patterns they hadn’t fully understood before.
This is also something I understand from a personal as well as a professional perspective. I was diagnosed with ADHD in my mid-50s, and although mine doesn’t show up through money difficulties, it does show up in other very familiar ways - procrastination, hyperfocus, sometimes on entirely the wrong thing, time blindness, difficulty switching tasks, and that frustrating gap between knowing what needs to be done and actually being able to start.
So when a client tells me they know what they “should” be doing with their money, but still can’t seem to do it, I fully appreciate the frustration. My questions centre on what's creating the friction? What's making this hard to approach? What might make the first step feel less impossible?
I also know how powerful it can be to have someone alongside you while you do the thing you’ve been avoiding - not to do it for you, but to make the task feel less lonely and help to get you started. Body doubling, reward/novelty mechanisms, accountability and dopamine regulation can all play a part in whether something feels doable. And sometimes, simply understanding that can soften years of self-criticism.
Clients might describe feeling overwhelmed by financial admin, avoiding money because it feels too much, struggling to keep track of multiple accounts, or finding it hard to connect today’s spending with future consequences. They might have bursts of motivation, followed by long periods of avoidance. They might feel anxious around numbers, confused by spreadsheets, or exhausted by the sheer number of financial decisions ordinary life seems to demand.
And very often, underneath all of that, there is shame. Shame about not being “better” at this by now. Shame about things they’ve forgotten, avoided or spent. Shame about the gap between what they intended to do and what actually happened.
But once we begin to explore what is really going on, the story often starts to change. Instead of asking, “Why can’t I just get on top of this?”, we might start asking, “What is making this difficult for me?” Those two questions lead somewhere very different.
It’s not just about budgeting
When people think about getting help with money, they sometimes assume the answer will be all about creating a workable budget.
And, yes, we do need to look at the numbers. We may need to understand what's coming in, what's going out, what needs attention, and what choices are available. But for many neurodivergent clients, the deeper work isn't simply creating a budget. It’s creating a financial system that feels possible to use.
A technically clever spreadsheet to help manage money is no use if the client feels overwhelmed every time they open it. A beautifully categorised budget won’t help if it depends on remembering too many steps. A money plan that looks good on paper may fall apart if it relies on constant self-monitoring, emotional restraint and weekly admin that simply can’t be sustained.
So the work becomes much more individual. We might look at how to make money more visible, because out of sight can genuinely mean out of mind. We might simplify accounts, automate what can be automated, rename savings pots so they feel more meaningful, or experiment with visual tools, colour, simple reminders that feel supportive rather than shaming. We might build in flexibility, because a rigid plan can quickly become another thing to fail at.
The aim isn't to make someone become a different kind of person. It's to find a way of managing money that has a chance of working for the person they already are.
When behaviour gets tangled up with identity
One of the things I see again and again is that money problems are rarely just about money.
For neurodivergent clients, there can be a long history of being misunderstood. They may have been told they’re disorganised, careless, chaotic, impulsive, forgetful or difficult. They may have internalised the idea that they just need to try harder.
By the time they come to coaching, their relationship with money may be tangled up with all of that.
So part of the work is gently separating behaviour from identity. There's a real difference between "I am hopeless with money" and "the system I've been trying to use doesn't work for me." That shift can be quietly transformative. It doesn't remove responsibility, but it removes some of the shame. And when shame softens, people often become much more willing to look honestly at what's happening. Making money feel safer to come back to
Avoidance tends to follow from shame. If money has become associated with fear, confusion or failure, of course part of you wants to look away. But avoidance usually makes the thing we're avoiding feel even bigger.
For many of my clients, the first step isn't sorting everything out. It's making money feel safe enough to come back to. That might mean opening one letter, looking at one account, or spending ten minutes gathering information without trying to fix anything yet. One client I worked with began by simply opening her banking app once a day, without any expectation to act on it. That was it. Just looking. And slowly, the dread started to ease.
Working with the brain you have
There's no single right way to manage money. There are only systems that are more or less likely to work for a particular person.
For one client, a detailed spreadsheet might feel calming and give them a sense of control. For another, it might feel like a wall of numbers they can't get past. One person may need structure and routine. Another may need visual cues, short bursts of focused action, or a system flexible enough not to collapse the moment life becomes messy.
So much of the traditional conversation around money still assumes a certain kind of brain — one that can plan consistently, regulate impulses, process numbers comfortably, and make calm decisions under pressure. Many people can't do all of that all of the time. That doesn't mean they can't build financial confidence. It means the starting point needs to be different.
The goal isn't perfection. It's building enough awareness and self-compassion that money becomes something you can return to, work with, and gradually feel less frightened by. And struggling with money doesn't make you a failure - it just makes you human.
If any of this resonates, the starting point doesn't have to be sorting everything out at once. It might simply be having a conversation about what feels hard, what you've already tried, and what kind of support might help.
If you’d like to explore whether financial coaching could help, you’re very welcome to get in touch.
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