Living with ADHD costs women an extra £1,695 a year

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Hey everyone,

Earlier this year we published research with YouGov about how ADHD can impact the way you manage your money.

People told us they were more likely to impulse spend, miss bill payments, struggle with debt and experience anxiety about their money – and we found on average it could cost people £1,600 extra a year.

We’ve just published some new research showing the way ADHD affects your money has an outsized impact on women – costing them an extra £200 when compared to men.

As more and more women are being diagnosed with ADHD, typically later in life – we want to raise awareness and highlight how digital banks like Monzo could help.

Check out the findings from our latest research – and stay tuned this week because we’ll be talking more about this across our social channels.

You can help us spread the word and start conversations about this by sharing from our social channels.

And if you’ve got any thoughts or experiences to share on the topic, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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Here’s a link to a piece in Refinery29 about the research -

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Just to note, it’s really great to see Monzo making good steps here. I don’t think it’s really talked about enough, so I’m glad it is.

I don’t have diagnosed ADHD but I can absolutely relate to struggling for some time around impulse spending, overspending and being anxious around money.

Often I would always spend more than I really had, forget about bills and then be surprised when my balance dropped and I didn’t have anything left. Plus, buying things I didn’t really need just to get a nice feeling.

Monzo helped me overcome this through being really clear on what I actually had (available balance) plus budgeting and nudge theory (i.e I could see I only had £x left in my shopping budget meaning it made me think twice about that item).

Plus, walking out of shops and waiting for the urge to buy to subside and then only going back in if I really did need the item stopped me from just buying it there and then.

So, thank you Monzo for helping me with that :slight_smile:

EDIT: I realise the theme is around women, and I’m not intentionally trying to make this less about them/me - happy to move this into the other thread if it’s more appropriate there

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This topic title feels a little clickbaity - maybe even intentionally, as the actual figure is £200 more than men, the way that I read the title was an extra £1695 more than men. Then the linked article doesn’t even back that up, it is just what people ‘think’. This isn’t to take away from your work of course, but I would love to see a proper study on the inequality here.

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Me too. There’s a line in my head between those that have ADHD and struggle, and just those who can’t budget/splash the cash too much. Just because you do the latter it doesn’t mean you automatically have ADHD

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This is really interesting thank you so much for sharing. I wonder what else causes the disparity (apart from later diagnosis). I feel like there is something societal at play as well. For example when I was a teenager socialising would often involve extended shopping trips.

Thank you Monzo for looking in to how to better support your diverse customer base. It’s wonderfully supportive and empowering.

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As a primary teacher, I am fully aware that it is much harder to get a diagnosis ADHD with girls than boys. My younger brother has ADHD (diagnosed as a child) and my mum was also diagnosed much later at the age of 46.

Personally, I have referred to the Educational Psychologist or the NHS, for an ADHD assessment, is around the same for boys and girls. I have got back only 1 girl diagnosed and around 5 or 6 boys.

More information on this can be read from the BBC.

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Yes - a very well put together post. With the none intent to de-rail as someone who suffers (though now thankfully, under control) from OCD I can tell you it’s one hella lot different to just “seeing something slightly out of order” - it had real life impact and implications on my life, relationships, friendships etc.

Back on topic, would love to hear from diagnosed folk on here as to how Monzo has helped them with their finances.

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The instant spend “holds” (rather than appearing and clearing days later), the predictive spending tools and the pots to keep bills money away from other funds has meant that for the first time in my whole life I have no debt (car and house excluded) and I’m starting to make savings.

I couldn’t do it with my old bank. The one pot of money was impossible for me to visualise and/or manage to ensure all bills were covered. It was just a big pot of shiny shiny spending money. Spreadsheets didn’t cut it at all.

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That’s great, and that was my experience too :slight_smile: I don’t want to de-value from the impact that must have had, and I love hearing stories like this.

But, as someone who doesn’t have ADHD, I would love to hear from folk that do, and see how Monzo has helped them too. A good balance across all areas

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I have diagnosed ADHD that’s why I answered your question.

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Ah I see, apologies, thank you so much for taking the time to answer

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This - and not just for ADHD and OCD. Autism, too.

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Hello, you’re right, it’s important to hear some real customer stories too, and we recently spoke to Nadia and Hannah who both have diagnosed ADHD. They shared a bit more about their journey, and how they’re using Monzo to help manage their money. Their stories are up on our blog now, and we’ll be sharing them both on social later today!

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It’s brilliant that you’re saving and that Pots has been helping. A few people from our research said the same thing - not having all your money come out of one big Pot can help you see where all your money is going.

Great to hear it, thanks so much for sharing!

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To ensure this doesn’t go off topic, I’ll DM you

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Thanks so much for sharing this – Nadia (one of the customers who shared her story with us) mentioned a few things that echo your point about more people noticing traits. These aren’t in the published interview but I thought I’d post them here.

She said it can be frustrating when she sees people imply it’s “just a little quirk” because she knows very well how it can actually impact your life (and your money being a major part of your life).

I get triggered by the whole “superpower” thing because it doesn’t feel like a superpower to me. I can see that it makes me creative, but this doesn’t outweigh the daily struggles at this stage. Maybe when I get better at managing it and coming to terms with it, that might change.

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Thanks so much everyone for sharing your thoughts on this! :hot_coral_heart:

I thought I’d jump in to share the most recent thing we’ve done at Monzo to improve our understanding of how we can better support people who live with ADHD :point_down:

We held a virtual listening session with ADHD UK on the 13th October :calendar:

The aim of the event was to bring together people who live with ADHD and people who can improve our product, our service, and our support for our teams at Monzo.

The session began with Henry from ADHD UK introducing the definition of ADHD, and the impact.

Kate Graham, our Process Manager in the Vulnerability, Access, Inclusion & Bereavements team then shared where we’re up to in our support for our customers, and Kirsten Doherty, our Director of D&I shared a summary of where we’re up to with our team.

There were two discussions that all attendees participated in:

Managing money, facilitated by Kate
Attendees were asked these questions

  • Talk us through a time when your ADHD has made things difficult or go wrong with money
  • What could your bank (or other institutions involved) have done to make this easier?
  • What would you most want people who don’t have ADHD to understand about why these kinds of things happen or what makes them difficult?

The workplace, facilitated by Kirsten
Attendees were asked these questions

  • Talk us through a time when your ADHD has meant you’ve particularly struggled at work.
  • What do you have from your manager that helps? Or what would you like to see?
  • When it comes to work what would you most want people who don’t have ADHD to understand about why these kinds of things happen or what makes them difficult?

We’re just in the process of gathering the findings from this session, and working out what actions we can take to make things better from a customer and a team perspective.

We’ll share this publicly, and we’ll hold a follow up session in the coming months :raised_hands:

If anyone is interested, please do reply to this and we’ll register your interest and be in touch with dates!

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