Is this a "me" thing, or an ASD thing?

[Soup]

Re: Is being bad with finaces or money an ASD trait or not?

I'd bet that Aspies, financial management would be more challenging. Part of it, though, has to do with the dynamics we live with daily in Western countries. People just aren't taught to understand much about money, banking, investing & financial management. The system survives off of rampant consumerism & we're being encouraged, everywhere we turn, to spend money. Happiness, we're taught, comes through purchasing power & ownership.

Many NTs are in deep financial crisis due to overspending, abusing credit & not understanding money either. Consumer debt is sinking the upper middle class & the middle class & taking the working class with it.

Asperger's may make the learning & change processes required for financial intelligence more difficult, BUT it is by no means the cause of the problem, imo. Many people lack the ability to discern between a want, a need & a craving etc. Buying unnecessary things, is a distraction from very real (& hard to solve) life problems. We obsess over an item, convince ourselves how desirable it is, how much we need it, deceive ourselves about the feelings we'll have by owning it & next thing we know, we're p!$$!ng away money that we could be building a stable future with. We wind up living & working to 'pay off' this or that.

THe sad thing is that none of these items is truly 'worth' anything near what was spent for it. Much of it is also useless in terms of it adding anything substantial, in the long term, to our lives. We may feel good when we get the item (a sort of 'high') then, with time, we want the next item. Some people become addicted to or enslaved by the purchasing cycle.

When it comes to this issue, the terrible unfairness of it is that it often forces other people to have to take care of some inept adult's basic needs. I never want to be a burden on anyone because I bought 300 comic books (or some other nonsense) with my money & therefore cannot pay my bills or live on my own.

 

[Cinnamon]

Re: Is being bad with finaces or money an ASD trait or not?

I am useless with managing my finances. I don't overspend much, but I always mess up the bills and other forms. This leads to me not paying bills, and then I get fined for late payment, and the fines get bigger etc. When I lived alone I eventually had a designated person -kind of an administrator who handles the finances of people who cannot do that themselves- doing this for me. It's not just the finances of course - I have trouble with all sorts of forms, and organization in general. My mother used to help me with the housekeeping. That was awkward because by then I was in my thirties. She didn't do the actual work, she just told me what I needed to do and how much time to spend on each thing. Before that I used to spend days cleaning and tidying on big closet for instance, and the rest would stay dirty. I'm better with that now, but not with paperwork. However, I now live with my partner who deals with that. There are still things I need to do myself though, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.
I also have a tendency to give money away to charity or to people who need it more than I do. Fortunately with my partner managing the money I can never give away more than than we can afford to miss.

 

[Soup]

Re: Is being bad with finaces or money an ASD trait or not?

It's great that you've acknowledged that you indeed have this problem (many people whether Aspies or NTs share it). I like the way you addressed it before it ruined you! Many people with a problem just watch it roll downhill until it crashes & burns. Finding a way to delegate some impossible task to someone competent, qualified & who you can trust is great. If you can slowly learn more about financial management, form-filling & organization, do so in baby-steps you can integrate & become at ease with at your own pace.

I have trouble with anything that takes the form of charts, grids & lines to fill in: most forms are this way. I learned to do the following: I read the entire thing first. If it's a multi-paged form with some parts relevant to me & some not (like a passport renewal form) in the first read-though, I circle the sections I need. Then, I use a paper to cover all but the small area I'm filling in at that second (like revealing the given name part but keeping the surname part covered). This prevents me from placing the wrong info in the wrong space. I don't know if this happens to you too, but it can make understanding forms & bills etc. much more difficult.

Sometimes, too, the problem is one of having too many papers arriving on different days with different amounts due at different times. It's easy to stuff it into a purse or a drawer with the intent of getting to it later, than simply forgetting! We arranged for certain bills to be automatically deducted from the bank acct we use for bill payments. Other statements arrive online, thereby reducing the amt of physical paper heaping up.

 

[King_Oni]

Re: Is being bad with finaces or money an ASD trait or not?

I don't know if it's an ASD trait per se actually... my parents are bad at managing their finances as well... probably worse than me. I think mismanagement of finances in general happens way more to those with low incomes. The world as it is today does indeed promote rampant consumerism, but actually it's not adressed to everyone. It's only adressed and meant for those who can afford it. But since marketing doesn't care about peoples urges and they just want to make money of everyone (who can blame them?) media puts it out for everyone.

I once thought about advertisments in general and as such thought about online advertisments even more. What if... what if... those had the confidential information of my assets, and would only advertise based on what I could spend. Yes it's a far fetched idea and presumably "weird"... but think about it. If I only have 2000 bucks in my bankaccount, I don't know if showing me that the new BMW is on sale for 90.000 is gonna benefit me as a potential buyer. Facebook already does it in terms of giving you personal ads based on certain information you give out on said site. Lifestyle choices, assets you have, interests, they can all come in to making advertising more appealing and more sensible. And I think if the assets thing would be a major factor, the easily influenced people (who do contribute in a lot of negative ways for the government), who might not have a lot to spend, might at least be told what they can buy with their money. (of course, some people will get a blank screen since they have no money at all)

So I don't know... low incomes are generally the group that's affected with mismanaging money. There's barely support and if you get support, even they tell you that it's hard to work with this small amount. People with high incomes and having an expense problem are similar to the low incomes... just add a few zeros to everything. The 10 dollar expense for me is a 1000 dollar expense for them... and if they make 10 times (or more) what I make/get/whatever a month, they're in the same boat.

If we're looking at low income and ASD... the only thing I can think of that relates to each other is that some (and I don't know exact numbers; but looking around here there's a few that don't have a job, looking in my social group, none have a job) might get their money from social services (long term or short term) and as such fall under a below minium wage group and thus a really low income. That's in my experience why "we" might deal with bad financial management.

 

[Soup]

Re: Is being bad with finaces or money an ASD trait or not?

Having a meagre income certainly does make financial management much more challenging because every cent needs to be used with maximum efficacy. Between essentials like rent, electricity/heat/water, medicine, groceries, transportation...almost every cent gets consumed! Worse still is when people are cornered into having to choose between food & medicine (or other essentials). This is an indignity no person with any disability should have to face in a wealthy western nation.

Here in QC there are programmes to help prevent people from falling down this rabbit hole that increases depression, addiction & the effects of a disability & endangers the elderly & poor families. HLM (habitations a loyers modiques) are apartments (sometimes even houses!) where a person's rent can be frozen at 1/4th their income. There are limits set on rent amounts depending upon how many people there are in a family, of course! A single person cannot apply to have a 3 bedroom house! Some are entire buildings wherein every unit is a HLM, others are in apartments all over the province. This great social programme allows poor people to live with dignity & not have to starve. Applicants have to meet certain criteria, but these are broad. For instance, a couple with a child earning minimum wage can apply as can someone on welfare.

For people with disabilities receiving benefits, there are other programmes similar that can provide a wheel-chair adapted building & unit close to the resources they use. Another option are apts that provide semi-independent living. These are good for elderly people, those with certain mental deficiencies, recovering addicts & such.

Here, people get assistance with daily tasks they may find challenging, some group activity/therapy options & other support. It can serve as a bridge between institutionalized care & normal autonomous living.

These all help people in difficulty for various reasons live comfortably. While the rest of us are taxed insanely, I fully agree that if it covers programmes like these, it's reasonable. The only objection I have is gov't mismanagement of our tax dollars: any waste ought to be cut out so the maximum amt goes to assist others.

Ironically, while managing meagre amts is hard, many poorer people become more efficient at budgeting than working class & middle class people. These last groups are the targets of easy credit/borrowing schemes that mislead them as to the high cost of borrowing, the 'value' of the items they're borrowing to pay for & entice them with the lure of appearing to have an upwardly mobile lifestyle.

A BIG problem in the USA & Canada is that most people want to identify as middle class (as if this is 'normal' & an entitlement). Many factors besides contribute to the class a person really can afford to live in. A middle class couple can live well in a working class to middle class area. Move the same couple into an upper middle class neighbourhood where the taxes & basic costs of living are considerably higher & they'll soon be in bankruptcy & foreclosure despite a combined income of about $70,000 year.

Our schools are partially at fault here too. WE just don't teach anything substantial about finance, debt, credit, saving & investing to kids. They turn 18 & become adults who have learned fro often ignorant parents & from advertizing telling them to spend & become life-long debtors. Also, esp in the USA, people are in deep denial of the class system, how it works, who is really where & what the implications of this are. There's a naive notion of 'everyone is equal' that flies in the face of their sprawling ghettoes, decrepit trailer parks, homelessness & destitution. The poor in America live under conditions you cannot keep dogs or livestock in here. It's a dirty secret America is in deep denial of & become aggressive & defensive over but its true. Here, in Canada, the problem of dire poverty is most visible on some more remote Native reservations & it is a national disgrace.

 

[Cerulean]

Re: Is being bad with finaces or money an ASD trait or not?

I don't know that I'm terrible with money, I mean my situation is improving debt and savings-wise, but I'm kind of afraid of it. When I was in college my apartment was broken into and my checkbook stolen off my desk. They wrote a bunch of checks that I didn't find out about until way later, and I even though my bank was super nice about it I ended up dealing with the aftermath of the robbery for quite awhile. It made me really apprehensive whenever a bill would come so I'd delay opening them. That got me in trouble with some late payments sometimes. It's just so anxiety-inducing that some days I just can't think about it.

 

[Cinnamon]

Re: Is being bad with finaces or money an ASD trait or not?

Thank you for your response, Soup. When I decided to let the administrator do my finances I was actually suffering from a bad depression.
Financially I wasn't really in big trouble though; I have a rule to not even possess a credit card, and never buy things that you have to pay off over time. Because indeed, lots of people seem to get into trouble with that! But I did have to pay lots of bills and fines. The administrator had it sorted in three months, so it probably wasn't as terrible as I thought it was.

I think I have trouble with deciding what is important and what isn't.
I work in childcare, and also have to write risk assessments for work. That is a problem - if I include all the risks I can think of, I'd never finish.
I mean, I have been told that I should include a terrorist attack - but not a meteor impact. Both are very unlikely to happen, and neither of them I can really prevent.
And many more things like that. How should I decide what goes in and what doesn't???

Same with observations - if I write down everything I see in a child, it would take my entire life. And longer. There are also checklist observation forms, but you are not supposed to use only those, and they don't give a proper idea of what the child is like either.
I get the impression that a lot of people just scribble down random things, and there are no clear guidelines, but then how can I tell which random things are okay and which aren't?
I can't stand it!

 

[balder]

I couldn't read a analog clock till at least my late teens/early 20's. I just didn't comprehend the long and short arm on the thing.

Same with me. Untill at least 15, I couldn't see any logic on how analog clocks work. It still seems absurd that you have to do a calculation just to tell what time is it. I also have problems associating the 24h type to AM/PM types(ex. think of 22:45 as 10:45pm).

Until after my 10th year, I couldn't tie my shoelaces. I always had shoes with a velcro, and in a way it made me feel weird cause I thought people made fun of me still having such shoes. Than my parents got upset, and they told me I had to learn it. They'd show me the 2 ways it's done in general, and I had to practice for an afternoon. I still didn't get it. However.

LOL I remember my mom trying to teach me her way and I never got it. One day she told my dad I didn't know how to tie and he showed me the way he had learned. It was perfect, and since then I never bothered learning a different way.

And handwriting, that was a big mess as well.

I never liked the way we learn to write. Instead, I prefer to write just like the computer typos. When I started using them on school, my mother complained, saying that it was wrong. My teachers, on the other hand, flattered my letters. Since high school (when nobody checks your notes anymore) I switched completely to the way I like.

 

[Cerulean]

I have some awesome shoes that are really slip ons but have fake laces so they look normal

 

[Tarragon]

Does anyone else have a history of thinking differently from other people as far as academics go? For instance, my elementary school used Hooked on Phonics to teach the students how to read, but I didn't understand. I got taught at home, and quickly caught on how to read and write. I began to write mini "books" even. Then I remember in my math courses my teachers telling me how I solved the problem wasn't correct, but it was unique. I couldn't learn the material unless it was explained in a certain way I could comprehend. In English literature, the way I interpreted the text was wayyy off, but once again I told it was an interesting way to approach it. The more I think about all of this, the more I feel dumb instead of merely different.

I used to take a whole page working out some of my A-level chemistry questions when there was a simple formula to use instead. my teacher used to comment on it, as it took her ages to mark my work!! can't remember if I got the answers right or not. Thinking about this, my A level physics was probably similar. I used to look at things my own way. even now, I do maths things with more of a "feeling my way" through numbers than sticking to methods were supposed to do. never really thought about it, but perhaps its an Aspie trait??

 

[Soup]

What are A levels?

 

[Tarragon]

UK thing, what you do to get into university.

I've thought some more about it, and would like to add that doing things different shouldn't make anyone "feel dumb"!!!! if people just did what had been done before, the way it had always been done before.... we'd all be still sitting in caves!! I think we should be proud of approaching things differently. it's what the whole point of education is ultimately about!

But I really relate to the sentiment of feeling "dumb". I was suicidal by the end of my A-levels. I'd lost confidence in my abilities precisely because I was "different". Nobody should have to feel like that. I hope people read this and it helps.

 

[Soup]

Thanks for the clarification, Tarragon. We don't have A levels here.

I never felt dumb: I felt like, although I was speaking the same language as others, for some reason, we seemed to have different meanings for all the words! Add their facial expressions & gesticulations to it & communication became a mess. The physical environment of most schools is designed as though to make Aspies suffer. Teaching strategies aren't ideal for Aspies either. I still shudder when I pass a high school or one of those yellow school buses.

 

[Tarragon]

I know it's a little childish(!) but I have worked in a school as a technician. Me and a teacher (on three times my salary) were sent on a video editing training course. Three days of doing what I love - computers and art mixed together, we sat the final exam to get the accreditation. I got 97% (would have been higher, but the guy doing the course admitted afterwards he had forgotten to tell us about a particular mini topic that was in the final exam). It was good to get my teeth into something I love doing (obsession). I memorised the 600 page manual (and could still finish any sentence in the book if quizzed weeks afterwards!).

The teacher, head of computer studies failed the exam.

It was sweet!! None of the other teachers brought this up!

So, I'm proud to not think things through the NT way! I don't really have a chip on my shoulder, but that was a sweet, sweet moment!

 

[Jaymee]

I have always felt "dumb" in school. Yet, I would hear how "intelligent" I am blah blah blah. I guess I was doing 11th grade math when I was in grade 4, and in 5th grade that ended. I dont know why but nothing ever sticks too long with me. I learn it Im comfortable with it, then next week I am like "how the hell do I do this again?"

 

[Pella]

I talk to myself all the time, but its more pretending I am someone else or doing something else. Like when I worked in retail, I would pretend I was on some reality show, and I had to teach celebrities to do my job. Or I have been caught pretending to teach a class. One time my boyfriend asked me who I was talking to and I said, "umm... well I just won an oscar for best screenplay, so I am giving interviews to reporters now." He said, "Ok, just wondering" I always try to keep it in my head but end up talking out loud. Other times its like I am thinking about how I might handle a conversation I am scared of and I end up talking out loud, sometimes even yelling, and I sometimes get really emotional during these talks.
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[balder]

I talk to myself all the time, but its more pretending I am someone else or doing something else. Like when I worked in retail, I would pretend I was on some reality show, and I had to teach celebrities to do my job. Or I have been caught pretending to teach a class. One time my boyfriend asked me who I was talking to and I said, "umm... well I just won an oscar for best screenplay, so I am giving interviews to reporters now." He said, "Ok, just wondering" I always try to keep it in my head but end up talking out loud. Other times its like I am thinking about how I might handle a conversation I am scared of and I end up talking out loud, sometimes even yelling, and I sometimes get really emotional during these talks.

Sometimes I also pretend I'm talking to someone I know. I don't always realize I'm doing that, it's like my mind tries to understand people faking a conversation with them.

I remember that when I was younger, I used to repeat some words people around me was saying, pretending I was them. My mother reprimanded me a lot because of that, thinking I was talking to myself.

 

[Divrom]

Sometimes I also pretend I'm talking to someone I know.

I do this myself. I think I do it because my brain enjoys an intelligent conversation. (How arrogant do I sound?!) It's as if I want to have an ultra-logical conversation with someone that I can spar with on an intellectual level. So, I pick me.

Other times, I do it to resolve conversations that didn't go the way I thought they should.

 

[whyamistillalive]

I talk to myself a lot too. I usually notice me talking to myself while I am driving somewhere, there is no chance anyone will notice, and I have nothing to do anyway since there is usually nothing to listen to on the radio. Usually I am thinking about how to explain something to someone, or rehearsing what I am going to say to someone at the place I am going. It used to bother me that I do this, but I seem to do it so often that I just accept it as another one of those strange things I do... I don't carry on a conversation with myself, it is a one way kinda thing, just me speaking to the other person, like I am practicing what to say to them, or how to say it.

When I usually talk in person, I don't often give anyone a chance to say anything anyway, so I guess this behavior of talking to myself is why my real conversations are one sided to start with. Since I practice talking to people by doing it alone, my real conversations in person could just as well be done if no one is there listening since I never ask for the other persons input anyway (like the talking to myself is reinforcing this bad habit - I never thought of that until now).

I don't know if this is a typical Aspie thing, if it is, that would make me feel a lot better : )

 

[Margaretha]

I do this myself. I think I do it because my brain enjoys an intelligent conversation. (How arrogant do I sound?!) It's as if I want to have an ultra-logical conversation with someone that I can spar with on an intellectual level. So, I pick me.

Other times, I do it to resolve conversations that didn't go the way I thought they should.

I do the same thing, every day, all the time. I'm always having conversations in my head. I think it's because I like discussing things I'm interested in and also It's a way of finding the right words to express my thoughts if I ever do get the opportunity to have a real conversation about what I'm thinking about.