I realize it might seem odd that a therapist is writing an article about money, but I’ll have you know finance has been one of my autistic special interests for over ten years. Over the years, I’ve read and listened to countless books and podcast episodes on finances. I would never preach one “right” way to do finances, but I will share what I have gleaned over the years and what has worked well for me as an AuDHD’er, mom, and business owner.
Understand What Money Is
The first thing you must understand is what money is. Money is a powerful tool that can be used to buy you freedom if you understand how to invest it. In order to invest money, you need to earn more than what you spend. After you figure out how to earn more than you spend, you will need to learn what to do with the excess. Learning how to manage money is a psychological game. In fact, according to the business insider (Weisenthal, 2014), dead people tend to outperform live people when it comes to investing. The moral of that story: don’t mess around too much with your investments; set it and forget it. Anything else requires a lot of research and guessing.
Learning Your Money Story
I grew up in a family where my parents didn’t know how to invest money, so they never did. When my father inherited $10k after his mother passed away, he invested in penny stocks (basically stocks that are very cheap and volatile), and he lost it all in a matter of days. Our family and backgrounds heavily influence how we feel about money. I highly recommend the podcast I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi (Sethi, 2021). Ramit has a great way of coaxing his guests into divulging their psychological hang-ups and inherited money stories. It’s really important to learn what yours is and how it impacts how you handle money.
Autism and Money
In addition to the money stories we inherited from our parents, we also can absorb money stories from the larger autism community. We can hear disheartening statistics such as “…50-75% of the 5.6 million autistic adults in the U.S. are unemployed or underemployed. Nearly 50% of 25-year-olds with autism have never held a paying job…” (Palumbo, 2021). This can be demotivating, to say the least. We cannot argue with these statistics; they are true, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn about money and how to manage the money we make. While the majority of autistic people are unemployed/underemployed, there are many of us who are employed or even in high-paying jobs and need to find ways to protect ourselves via investing so that we can hedge against burnout and the potential need to retire earlier than our peers.
A Simple Way to Invest
After studying finances for over ten years as my special interest, I have settled on one money philosophy, and that philosophy can be summed up as simplicity. I don’t try to make fancy investments or predict things. I just take all of my extra money (acknowledging privilege here) and buy broad-based index funds. Index funds are essentially a slice of all of the stocks on the market. So, my investment portfolio just goes up and down with the stock market. And if you have ever looked at how the stock market has performed over the past 100+ years, you will see that it is a long game, but ultimately, it has always gone up by an average of around 7% or so. A great book on this simple path of generating wealth is a book by JL Collins called A Simple Path To Wealth (Collins, 2015).
What Money Can Buy
Ultimately, what attracted me to learn about investing and money was a deep desire to have options and freedom. As a late-diagnosed autistic person, I have felt like I have lived my whole life pushing myself. I began working at age ten, and I have never stopped. I never felt like I had a choice to work or not. It was only when I discovered investing that I learned about how many folks have learned how to retire early or experience varying levels of freedom from required work due to investing diligently and living below their means. The movement toward financial freedom is sometimes called the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early). The first time I learned about the FIRE movement was when I read the article The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement by Mr. Money Mustache (Mustache, 2012).
Conclusion
The knowledge I have to pass along from 10+ years of finances being my special interest is simple: if you make an income, be mindful of your expenses so that you can invest what you do not spend. I started my journey with financial independence when I was making $17/hour living on my own in the Bay Area. I am not saying everyone can do this, and I am not a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” type of person. However, I do believe that what I have learned is valuable, and I hope to pass along what I have learned to my children. Mostly, it is possible to go from $0 net worth to millions, even if you are not a high-income earner, even if you are disabled. The money story I was taught was that investing was something only rich people did. I hope what I have shared today shows that is incorrect.
Danielle Aubin, LCSW, is an Autistic Private Practice Therapist at My Autistic Therapist. She can be reached by email at danielle@danielleaubin.com.
Sources
Collins, J. L. (2015). The simple path to wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. www.amazon.com/gp/product/1533667926/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1533667926&linkCode=as2&tag=jlcollinsnh-20&linkId=1b236a42ef2205f07c4e83e9a984bd17
Mustache, M. (2012, January 13). The shockingly simple math behind early retirement. Mr. Money Mustache. www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/
Palumbo, J. (2021, April 27). Why Autism Speaks is encouraging companies to hire those on the autistic spectrum. Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferpalumbo/2021/04/27/why-autism-speaks-is-encouraging-companies-to-hire-those-on-the-autistic-spectrum/#:~:text=Studies%20estimate%20that%2050%20to%2075%20%25%20of,nor%20pursuing%20education%2Ftraining%20post-high%20school%20in%20the%20U.S.
Ramit Sethi. (Host). (2021). I will teach you to be rich [Audio podcast]. Apple Podcasts. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-will-teach-you-to-be-rich/id1577864998
Weisenthal, J. (2014, September 23). Forgetful investors performed best. Business Insider. www.businessinsider.com/forgetful-investors-performed-best-2014-9
