If financial issues have taken over your life or damaged key relationships but you feel you are ready to make a change, Park Slope producers would like to hear your story. You should be willing to allow cameras to film a “day in your life,” including conversations with family and friends.  NYC area preferred.  If chosen for the documentary, a free consultation will be provided by Drs. Klontz.

If you feel you can benefit from the project, please contact info@parkslopeproductions.net

Why do some people take their roles as consumers literally and consume and consume and consume—purchasing items they don’t need, splurging on silly gifts (for friends and themselves) without pausing to consider costs, hitting the mall whenever they’re feeling down or bored, and digging themselves huge amounts of credit card debt in the process?

People aren’t that dumb. It’s pretty obvious that overspending leads to financial problems. It’s also pretty obvious that very few people actually need to go shopping when they say, “I need to go shopping.”

So why is it that so many consumers are unable to control their spending habits? How come they can’t approach shopping and other expenditures with detached logic? How come we all seem to buy way more than we need, and some of us pay the price in more ways than one? Why can’t we be more rational about consumption?

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Jacqui Payne wanted to be just like her friends, and credit cards were the means to get there.

“I had this impression that people who had credit cards were somebody, so I set out to have credit cards,” she said. “I always felt that I wanted my friends to see me as an equal. They had credit cards; I should have credit cards.”

There was one problem, Payne said: “They had the money to pay for them. I didn’t.”

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Has billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates or the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta done more for their fellow man?

If given an option between all the money or all the love in the world, which would you choose?

How you answer those questions will determine your financial future, according to Ted Klontz, a Tennessee-based financial behavioral consultant.

“For every financial behavior, there’s some kind of belief system that drives it,” Klontz explained.

“There’s what you think, and then there’s what you do,” he noted.

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Karina Carretero and Kian Kaeni, both 33, have known each other since he sat behind her in English class at their southern California high school in the mid-90s. They started dating in 2003 and married four years later. They have a 1-year-old daughter and are trying to save a down payment for a house.

That’s a tricky process, because they haven’t merged their finances yet. “Since dating and through marriage we kept everything separate,” says Carretero, a public relations executive. Although the couple slashed their student loan and credit card debt in anticipation of the home purchase, neither one has a precise tally of the bottom line.

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By Richard Sine

Step 1: Tune out the noise

You felt rich back in 2008, and now you feel poor. You’re not alone: As of late last year, nearly 80 percent of wealthy Americans had consciously reduced or deferred their spending, according to the American Affluence Research Center. Even the very rich are pinching 20s: About three out of four millionaires with up to $6 million of wealth are cutting back, and 56 percent of people worth more than that are doing the same.

But it’s your economy that matters, not your neighbor’s or even the nation’s. If your job is hanging by a thread or you’re drowning in debt, then it’s time to cut back. But if your job seems secure, your credit is good, and you have funds in the bank, then it may be time for some risks.

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Sports fans, both in tennis and soccer are being treated to spectacles of superhuman proportion. Whether in eleven hours of Wimbledon tennis between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, or in the pure grit and determination of the US Soccer team; we are treated to wonderful lessons of resiliency, determination and champion focus. The challenges were both mental and physical and brought out the best in all concerned; a testament to the best of the human spirit.

What separates us from these iconic examples is our own ability to tap into our own pools of mental toughness. Somehow, John Isner and his opponent, Nicolas Mahut refused to yield to the pressure and exhaustion and kept at each other game after game. After having goals disallowed in two matches where the calls by the referees were questionable, at best, the US team refused to allow the frustration to overtake their desire for success. It is that resiliency, in the face of challenge, that makes the achievement that much more wonderful to behold.

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Steven D. Hayworth, chief executive of Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust, is thrilled that his daughter will be working this summer at a women’s clothing store before heading to college in the fall. It is not the particular job that pleases Mr. Hayworth. Rather, he is hoping his daughter will make the connection between how much she earns each day and what that will buy.

“As a parent who has worked his whole life and has had a little bit of success in my career, one of the huge life lessons I learned early on is the value of a dollar,” said Mr. Hayworth, whose bank is based in Coral Gables, Fla. “Particularly for children of upper-middle-class and affluent families, there’s no perspective on value. When the new Range Rover pulls into the driveway, there’s no concept of how many hours of hard work went into owning that vehicle.”

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