The ADHD Tax: How I Paid With My Energy (Even If Not With Money — Yet)

Let me tell you a story about garbage. Not metaphorical garbage — the literal, municipal kind.

Yesterday I found a bill for our garbage service due next month. No biggie, I thought. I definitely paid that already. I even remember showing the receipt to a friend not too long ago. So I opened up my internet banking, confidently expecting to see the payment... only to find nothing.

Cue confusion. Then doubt. Then that familiar mini spiral: Wait, did I pay it? Did I imagine it? Am I losing it?

I searched a bit deeper. And there it was: the payment I remembered so clearly — from last year.

I had remembered paying the bill. I had even remembered when and how. I just hadn't noticed that the date said 2024, not 2025.

Technically, the bill isn’t overdue. I have time. No financial harm done. But it still cost me a ridiculous amount of mental energy to investigate, doubt myself, spiral, and finally reorient to reality.

Welcome to what many of us call the ADHD tax.

So What Is the ADHD Tax?

The term “ADHD tax” refers to the real-world costs — financial, emotional, or energetic — that people with ADHD often pay simply because of how our brains work.

It's not a literal tax, of course. But it feels like one.

It’s the late fees on bills we forgot existed.

The replacement items we buy because we misplaced the original.

The subscriptions we forgot to cancel.

The memberships we meant to use but never did.

The energy we lose to spiraling about all of the above.

It’s the mental load of trying to catch up, the guilt of “messing up again,” and the constant patching-up of situations that didn’t have to go wrong in the first place.

Common Examples of the ADHD Tax

• Buying things twice: You can’t find your headphones anywhere, so you buy new ones — then find the originals under your laundry pile a week later.

• Late fees and penalties: A library fine. An unpaid parking ticket. A missed doctor appointment fee. Not because you didn’t care, but because the task slipped through the cracks.

• Lost time and energy: You start doing your taxes, but it takes five hours because the paperwork is in six different places and your brain refuses to cooperate.

• Double-booking or forgetting plans: You RSVP to an event, then forget about it until it’s over — or worse, remember it mid-way through and feel like a jerk.

• Food waste: I don’t have one of those shiny smart fridges that wakes up in the morning and says, “Hello Jane, there's a yoghurt that expires today. You might want to eat it for breakfast.” So sometimes food just... quietly dies in the back of the fridge, uneaten and forgotten, because “out of sight, out of mind” is painfully real.

• Impulse buying: You’re emotionally exhausted from a stressful day of executive dysfunction, so you buy something shiny online just to feel a little dopamine again.

  
  

Why It’s Not “Just” Forgetfulness

Here’s the thing: the ADHD tax isn’t just about forgetfulness. It’s about executive dysfunction — the brain’s difficulty with managing tasks, planning, memory, prioritizing, time management, and motivation.

And it’s not because we’re lazy. Or irresponsible. Or careless.

It’s because our brains are wired differently. But we’re still living in a world that expects linear, neurotypical task management.

That mismatch? That’s the cost.

So What Can We Do?

You can’t entirely avoid the ADHD tax, but you can soften the blow:

• Automate where possible. Set up automatic payments, reminders, and calendar alerts.

• Make checklists and routines your friend. Externalize the mental load.

• Give yourself visual cues. Post-its, timers, or apps that remind you that time is actually passing.

• Forgive yourself quickly. If you catch a mistake, fix it — but don’t spiral. Everyone misses things sometimes. ADHD just means we might miss more, more often.

• Talk about it. You’re not alone. Sharing stories (like this one!) helps reduce shame and normalize the struggle.

Making the Invisible Visible

One of the ways I’ve learned to reduce the ADHD tax (at least in the food category) is with a little analog trick: the pantry list.

We have a separate pantry for dry food and cans — and I was constantly forgetting what was in there, or buying duplicates of things we already had. So I made a simple list of the contents and stuck it right on the inside of the pantry door.

Every time I add something new, I write it down. Every time I take something out, I cross it off.

It’s not fancy. It’s not digital. But it works. Because when you live with ADHD, the biggest challenge is often just keeping important stuff visible. And a visible list = less waste, fewer surprises, and fewer mental spirals when you're trying to decide what’s for dinner.

Also, there’s a little dopamine kick every time I cross something off — and I’ll take that win.

Glitch Logged, Lesson Learned

The ADHD tax doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you human — a neurodivergent human navigating a world that wasn’t built for your brain.

Sometimes the cost is a bit of money. Sometimes it’s a lot of energy and frustration, like when I spent my afternoon investigating a garbage bill that wasn’t even overdue. But here’s the win: I caught it. I learned something. And now I’m writing about it. That feels like turning a little “tax” into a tiny return.