My personal philosophy when it comes to managing my daily expenses is to make it as simple as possible. I also prefer to use management systems that are inexpensive. Not only does a simple system work for me, but using a simple system seems to work better for many adults with ADHD. Recently I came across the Home Budget Book , which is an excellent budget planning notebook for people who have trouble tracking their finances. The Home Budget Book  has pre-filled categories to help you track your daily income and spending for a year. It also has pockets to store your receipts and helpful advice on how to reduce spending and reduce your taxes. The bottom line is that this is the most easy to follow system that I have seen when it come to managing finances and I highly recommend the Home Budget Book. 

With the struggling economy, more adults with ADHD are coming to Adult ADD and Money looking for advice  on how to deal with ADHD as it relates to their career. Because I am not an expert when it relates to career advice, I have listed three very useful articles for ADHD adults looking for career advice: 

• Top Ten ADHD Traps in the Workplace     (ADD Resources)

• Job Layoffs: How ADHD Adults Can Avoid the Cut    (ADDitude Magazine)

• Acing the Job Interview: Career Advice for ADD Adults    (ADDitude Magazine)

With a struggling economy more people are looking for ways to save money. Rebates can seem very enticing when deciding to purchase a product. I think that most adults with ADD should avoid rebate offers altogether. If you remember to fill out the rebate form, you will find that many rebate forms are difficult to fill out and require a lot of documentation. This is why Business Week estimated that 40% of rebates are never redeemed. In the past I have purchased products with mail-in rebates and have had mixed results, but nothing compared to these examples:

1.  Staples Easy Rebate
2.  Don't get ripped off by a rebate 'deal'
3.  Office Depot Falsely Denies Man's Rebate

I am not a big fan of New Year's resolutions. I find that January is not the best month for me to tackle major changes. I find I tend to focus on making changes around the beginning of Spring and the beginning of Fall.  For example this year, during the fall I have focused on getting more exercise, and while I was not perfect, I exercised a lot more than in the summer. During the winter my goal will be to maintain my current exercise regimen.

While I will not make resolutions, it is a good time for me to review and to refocus on financial goals I set in the fall. Here are three things I can improve on during 2010: 

1. According to my account at Mint.com, I managed to rack up close to $100.00 in ATM fees from making withdrawals at other banks ATM's. While I will not avoid ATM fees completely, it is reasonable for me to average less than two ATM withdrawals at other banks per month. I should be able to cut my fees for 2010 by at least in half. Many of the charges were due to lack of planning.

2. Stop chasing the ideal solution. There have been times where I spent extra time and gas money trying to find the ideal solution to my task. A couple of examples include:

• Buying extra christmas wrapping supplies because I was not sure how my wife wanted to wrap a present.
• Driving to an additional store to find a specific product, when the store I was at had a perfectly fine alternative.

3. Using Amazon.com more often. For many people this would seem counter productive, but we already pay a yearly fee for 2-day free delivery. There have been several times that I have gone out to just get one item that I could have easily ordered from Amazon.  Not only did I spend money on gas for the car but I often ended up coming home with several more items that I needed.

Here are five of my favorite ADD / ADHD blog posts for December:

Mutual Funds and Cookie Monster (Stephanie Sarkis)

Gratitude and ADHD (My ADD / ADHD Blog)

Aw, what a card. (ADD-Libbing)

Are ADDers the New Vampires? (ADDer World)

Adults with ADD: Ditch Your New Year's Resolution (Experiencing ADDvantages)

Recently I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about Terrance Watanabe who lost close to 127 million at Harrah's owned casinos in 2007. Mr. Watanabe is facing four felony counts in Nevada stemming from a dispute over 14.7 million that Harrah's allegedly loaned to him and he lost. Mr. Watanabe filed a civil suit arguing that Harrah's holds some liability because they purposely tried to intoxicate him and then let him gamble while intoxicated.

There are many aspects of the story I found intriguing, but the one I found most interesting is the extreme lengths that an organization will go to keep fueling a customer's purchases. At Harrah's, Mr. Watanabe had a 3 bedroom suite, numerous attendants, a personal bartender, and a $500,000 credit at the gift shops among many other benefits. Given the amount he gambled with Harrah's this is not surprising, but should serve as a warning to consumers. With the struggling economy companies go to great lengths to make consumers feel wanted by offering additional benefits for spending money and by developing personal relationships with customers. While these are good things for customers, it is crucial to recognize that the main reason that companies are treating you better is because they want you to spend more money with them.

Another holiday repost from 2005 (Note: I drew the tree all by myself, an art career is not in my future)

Many adults with ADD tend to procrastinate holiday shopping because the whole ordeal can be overwhelming. Here are a couple of shopping tips to help ease your holiday anxiety.

1. Try to avoid the malls and the gigantic superstores.

Under normal circumstance the malls and superstores can be over stimulating for an ADD adult. However during the holiday season everything is more distracting; there are more people shopping, the holiday music always seems louder, there are more choices, and more displays. It is easy to make poor impulsive choices or to get discouraged and not buy anything at all. A lot of adults with ADD like to go to smaller stores that they are familiar with in order to reduce the stimulation, I find that in the smaller stores there are more unique choices to help you better fit your gift with the person that your are giving it to. Other ADD adults like to shop on-line to avoid the hassle and to find unique gifts.

2.  Divide you shopping into smaller trips.

Going on a shopping trip trying to buy fifteen presents can be overwhelming.  But if you go out on a shopping trip to get three to five presents you are more likely to achieve your goal.  To make it easier you shopping trips can have a theme, like one shopping trip can be to just get presents for your nephews & nieces. This will also limit the amount of stores that you have to choose from each trip.