I'm curious. Are you generally good with money and finances

Post Reply New Topic

i want to go out of my way and say a majority of us aspies are conservative and careful with personal finances

i have always been good with money and let it work for me....the right kind of debt and income structure to secure financial goals

1-does every dollar burn a hole in your pants and is gone?

2- do you impulsively spend on junk?

3-- do you save, yet still have a good time within reason?

4- do you watch every penny like a hawk and spend little?

please state your age, if you are younger, the tendency will probably be towards spending freely as it does in the general populous

I'm very frugal with money. I don't go out spending it on stuff I don't really need. In fact I don't really need any more stuff because I have enough stuff in my apartment. I don't keep track of anymore how much we spend because we have too much in the bank. My husband checks our bank account. It's hard to save money now because my husband is the only one working so his income has to cover our bills. We save it for bills.

I'm 24.

Last edited by League_Girl on 12 Feb 2010, 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I keep a close eye on my finances. I balance my checkbook to the penny and I know when my bills are due and I pay them as soon as the statements are printed. I always maintain enough funds to pay my monthly bills. That being said, I also spend very impulsively, mainly on gadgets and dvds. I won't allow myself to cary cash because it is gone in the wink of an eye. I am attempting now to curb my spending, hoping to bring down my debt.

Ps, age was asked, I am 28 and have been financially independent for 6 years.

I'm somewhere between 3 and 4. A few years ago I was beginning to mellow from a previously spartan philosophy with money, but then the day job took a turn for the worse and I realised that I was probably going to leave before normal retirement age. Since then I've been living on half salary and saving the rest. At the time I was half expecting to be dismissed for incompetence, but even after the AS diagnosis came through and adjustments were made, I can't see myself staying on much longer. So I'm going to hold my nose for another 3 years and by that time I'll have enough savings to be independent.....then I'll have to choose between 6 more years on (the equivalent of) half salary, or keeping the day job and having a lot more money. So far I'm strongly in favour of getting out.

I'm not sure what "good" means concerning finances. I'm certainly careful, probably too careful. I'm also capable of analysing expenses quite thoroughly, and producing forecasts that tend to be pretty accurate as long as the starting assumptions are valid. I'm aware that forecasting 6 years into the future is difficult, and that my plan could go wrong, so I've made a lot of pessimistic assumptions about inflation and interest rates, so that I'm erring well on the side of caution. Even sifting through my old bank statements to get a picture of recent expenditure is fraught with traps - quarterly power bills based on company estimates don't measure the real consumption. So now I'm taking meter readings to find out what's really going on.

I certainly haven't felt a need to buy much more than the necessities, and I always ask myself "do I really want this?" before I buy anything that could be classed as a luxury. This month's extravagance is a second 1.5TB hard drive so that if the existing one goes wrong then I won't lose my music/photos/videos/documents. It's kind of fun to have to make every purchase count. Similar to the way I used to feel about music when I could only afford one record a week. I really think that not being too wealthy is a better way of life in many respects. As long as there's enough to cover the basics (food, energy, home, taxes, a few clothes, etc.), and a bit over for the occasional luxury, I don't feel any pain at all. But that little bit of luxury makes a big difference.

I do save but spend within good reason.

I use a 0 based budget to determine what is coming in and what is going out. Income equals expenses and once I am out of money, I am out of money.

I've done best when I really kept it simple. At the moment I'm untangling the mess from a really complicated time... two "partners" in the last ten ears, who just took me for everything they could get, one right after the other. Obviously I participated in being used, but really it was much more than I would have liked to contribute to them but Whatever.

So whereas I do have enough money to take care of my family, it's not always a result of good planning on my part (sometimes it is) - often it's just good fortune. Like I messed up ( ) and was looking at a financially dreary weekend but then I happened to see a check in the mail that I'd overlooked a few days before on the seat of the car. And today I talked to someone I had been meant to pay a big chunk this weekend, and she told me she isn't around, please just bring her the money next weekend.

Don't get me wrong, I don't know where it's coming from next weekend, but I do know that I'll pay her when she gets here. I always have the money when I need it and usually it's just in the flerkin nick of time. I go to the extreme in the other direction too & sometimes I'm really organized with it all, but idk if I'll be that way again.....?

I'm 17, and a girl.
I generally plan to buy something, and think about it for a good while. It may cost a lot, but I think about it for months. Like my mac. I was fine with spending every ounce of my allowance, and then going into some debt for it. XD But I decided to do this a good while before the actual purchase I didn't regret it.
I don't really splurge, unless it's on food. XD Who can deny food?

I'm TERRIBLE with it. I need someone to help me budget and keep an eye on what I'm doing, otherwise I will wind up with a bunch of useless junk that I thought seemed "fun" to have at the time, but serves no real purpose.

I do not entirely understand 1.
At first I thought it meant I very reluctantly spend things and if I do, it hurts, but now I think it may mean the opposite.
I do not know what a good time within reason is.
I have always had a good time and I have almost never needed money to have a good time.
I do not spend impulsively, and when I do, it is on useful things.
I do not know how a hawk would watch pennies, and the European system does not work with pennies, but with cents.
I think my watching could be compared to how a magpie watches the shiny things it has collected.
I do save up.
There is an episode of a show called Numb3rs and it is called 'Scan Man' and there is an autistic man on that episode and although he is quite stereotyped, but not evenly, how he saved up his money and only buys certain foods does resemble my frugality.

I'm decent with budgeting money, i just suck at MAKING money

I also research a product nearly endlessly when I am wanting to buy it.

I was terrible with it the first half of my life (i was on a pension that whole time.) WHen i left school and I left as a top student, I could not go into a bank without priming up for days, and I did not know how to open a bank account and I did not know how to negotiate simple things like that.
I would get my money and I would spend my money - often on drugs or alcohol to cope with life, or special interest pursuits.

When I was in my late 30's I went to a world renowned rehab for substance abusers. It was my 7th rehab, and they systematically took people through the process of learning how to do simple living skills. There is no doubt I still find these things a little difficult, but i did learn how to manage my money and budget with breakdowns and lists, and I did learn how to eat well, live well, exercise and respect myself and others a bit more than i did prior. I was undiagnosed AS at the time, and they assumed my distress in groups, my rocking and my meltdowns were purely due to trauma. It was not until 9 years later and after 9 years of intensive therapies that i saw ASD clinicians who were able to piece together my complete presentation, with my input and the input of family and some other people around me who offered objective views about how I behave.

I also learned A LOT of basic social scripting there...How to do a two way conversation, how to speak in front of people, how to take interest in others. Some of those areas are still hard for me, but I am glad I have a few skills in that department.

I feel fairly lucky I had a year of intensive rehab and halfway house and then another four years of pure therapy and "learning how to live" at this place and in a program suited to me. That rehab ...it was the turning point in my life. As and ASD person I was fairly lucky to have that experience even though at the time it was the most hellish thing i had EVER done. It was so hard having to force myself to stay everyday - (i had been there before and run away because I could not cope with the people and the groups and the externally imposed routines etc.) - being a part of groups and a therapeutic community. it was just so hard, and I would cry myself to sleep at night while all the other rehab people made deep friendships and played board games and "bonded," which is what I could not really do or find much purpose in. I would be in my room on my own reading and i could here them, and how they lived and connected and communicated just didn't make sense to me. But I did meet some people there who helped me and who accepted me and my eccentricities. I do have friends today.

Even though at that time I did not have a name for my condition, I learned that I could make some changes and live in the world in my own way, that I did not have to hate myself for being a bit different and that I could learn to live a more positive life tailored to me.
I like to try to live in a place of inspiring myself and others to reach for that. I believe I (and other ASD people) can do wonderful things if we learn a bit of self-reflection, the particularity of our traits, what to work on and what to accept. I also believe those "those wonderful things" may not necessarily make sense to the mainstream world, and part of the key to living really happily as an ASD person is to get to a point of rejoicing in this. It's ok to be different. It is ok to be me. And It is ok to live in a way that suits me.

I don't believe I have to twist myself into trying to be something I am not. But I do believe my life is made a little easier by learning a few basic things that help me find joy in my own life. My areas of struggle are going to be different from those of the next ASD person. And more and more I believe the key is to move beyond the generic guidelines offered by clinicians and instead get to "know thyself" and develop self-reflection and self-analysis and then attend to what can be addressed and what cannot be and needs to be accepted. I think the key is to know one's OWN particular presentation in detail in relation to self and in relation to community and then work from that place. And that is a daily choice about living in the solutions as opposed to focusing on the problems and the negative (which I can EASILY and FREQUENTLY do.)

So..the issue for me is not "Am i good with finances" or "do I struggle with the basics?"

The full issue for me is
1. Do I struggle with a particular issue?
2. Where and how exactly and specifically?
3. Is there anything i can do about this difficulty within me?
4. If the answer is "no" then work at deep self-acceptance in relation to this struggle. And if the answer is "yes", then start developing a goal oriented plan which addresses attitude and actions that may help me improve.


It is time consuming lifetime work and I really have reached a point in my life as an AS woman where I would not want it any other way.

There are some things in me that will NEVER change because I have a neurological difference, but there are some things I can learn to manage better and in accord with who I am and what I am and the world I live in.

Last edited by millie on 12 Feb 2010, 4:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I'm more like this, but I don't get into too much trouble in that I don't borrow, once the money is gone, it's gone. I tend to regret purchases, but not regret any lack of savings. I didn't expect to live this long, and I can't take it with me, so I don't see the point of being miserly with my money.

Glad to see I'm not the only one! I was starting to wonder, haha. Yeah, it's never really gotten me into a lot of trouble or anything, and I don't borrow either. Some of the junk I have around here though gets me wondering why I have it, haha.

Option 3. I try to save as much as possible but if I've wanted something for a long time (for example, my recent purchase of an MP3 player) then I'll do my research on which stores have the best prices and then decide if I actually really want it right now or if it can wait. If I do want it right now then I will buy it but I wont buy anything expensive until I've saved up to or more money than the cost of that last big purchase.

I'm 18 so I don't have to worry about having a mortgage (yet).

Yes.