Moneywise Wealth Management

10/16/2026

Fidelity's 2025 wealth transfer study found that roughly 67 percent of parents age 55 and older have never told their adult children what they will inherit, or whether they will inherit anything at all.

About 33 percent would prefer the kids are kept in the dark about the amount.

Their reasons should feel familiar:
✔️ Worry that a specific number will dampen a child's drive
✔️ Discomfort talking about money at all

The same study found:

Most adult children say they are ready to handle whatever they inherit and would rather shape things while their parents are still around to explain the "why" behind decisions.

Families who have inheritance strategies share some similar habits:

💬 Kids know who the financial professionals are and how to reach them
💬 Everyone knows where the estate documents are
💬 They try to manage any surprises well ahead of time

So, do you tell your children or not?

There's no single right answer here.

Sharing exact numbers isn't necessary, but most families find that a broad discussion can help with priorities and expectations.

10/14/2026

🎙️🌦️ THE LEGEND IS BACK!!! 🌧️☀️

🚨 THIS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15TH, ON MONEYWISE! 🚨

We're rolling out the red carpet and welcoming back a VERY familiar face and a true Bakersfield LEGEND… Retired Chief Meteorologist MILES MUZIO! 🌤️👏

Miles is stopping by while he's back in town, and we've got LOTS to catch up on!

🎤 How's retirement treating him?

🏖️ What's next for Miles now that he's stepped away from forecasting full-time?

🌧️🌊 And you KNOW we're not letting him leave without talking about EL NIÑO! What could it mean for Bakersfield and Kern County? Are we in for a WET and WILD season? ☔👀

You won't want to miss this conversation filled with stories, laughs, and a little weather wisdom from one of the BEST in the business!

📻 TUNE IN THURSDAY FROM 12–1 PM!
📡 KERN Radio 96.1 FM & AM 1230
💻 ALWAYS STREAMING LIVE: MoneywiseGuys.com

🎧 CAN'T LISTEN LIVE? NO PROBLEM!

Subscribe to the Moneywise Podcast, available on major podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts (iTunes), and catch up whenever it's convenient!

📲 HAVE A QUESTION FOR MILES?

Call or text into the show ANYTIME, 24/7, at 661-396-1000!

💬 WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! What's your favorite Miles Muzio memory, or what would YOU like to ask him about this year's weather? Drop it in the comments! 👇

Until then, like we always say…

BE SMART. BE SAFE. BE MONEYWISE. 💰🎙️

10/14/2026

A mother in California picked up the phone and heard her daughter's voice, panicked, saying she'd been kidnapped and needed money immediately.

What she'd heard wasn't her daughter. It was an AI-generated clone of her voice.

In a 2025 study, scientists found that when people heard a cloned voice, they correctly identified the voice as AI-generated only about 60 percent of the time.

The FBI attributed more than $890 million in 2025 losses to AI-enabled fraud, and voice cloning is one of the main drivers behind that number.

It is not only older adults being targeted. Younger family members get these calls too, often framed as a sibling or friend in trouble. Older adults just tend to lose the most per incident.

Two ways to protect your family.

🔐 Agree on a private code word or question with the people a scammer is most likely to impersonate (kids, parents, spouse)

📞 If a call like this comes in and you have not set up a code word yet, hang up, then call the real person back

When in doubt, slow down and verify.

10/12/2026

A surprise $90 deposit is landing for some Medicare enrollees this week. For roughly 40 million others, nothing is coming.

The payments are going to people in traditional Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits, outpatient care, and preventive screenings. Medicare Advantage enrollees, people who pay income-related premiums, and those who already receive premium assistance are not eligible. Most deposits arrive through the Social Security Administration, while some beneficiaries will get a paper check later in October labeled “Medicare Improvement Fund Payment.”

📌 The standard Part B premium is $202.90 in 2026 and is expected to reach $209.50 in 2027.

That context matters. Some analysts note the $90 helps but won’t fully offset rising premiums, and healthcare costs remain a top financial concern across age groups.

For now, the payment is a welcome bit of relief. The bigger question is how coverage costs keep pace over time.

Millions of seniors are getting $90 direct deposits from Social Security this week, prompting questions about the source of the money.

10/10/2026

⚠️ Money is one of the most consistently cited sources of stress in America.

For caregivers, that weight often increases! 😮

Having a clearer picture of where things stand can help ease some of the uncertainty that makes financial stress feel heaviest in the first place.

There's no clean solution to money stress.

Most of it is caused by the unknown. The uncertainty.

World Mental Health Day recognizes just how deeply finances can impact our well-being (and vice versa).

If financial stress has been sitting in the background of your life this year, a conversation with a professional can go a long way, be it a mental health professional or a financial professional. Pursuing comfort, understanding, and compassion is a team sport.

10/09/2026

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an opportunity to prioritize health.

Early detection through regular screenings is one of the most effective tools we have in the fight against breast cancer.

Here are a few small things we can do this October:

✅ Schedule your annual screening if you haven't yet

✅ Educate yourself and others on risk factors and preventative lifestyle habits

✅ Support research and organizations dedicated to advancing breast cancer prevention and care

Taking charge of your health today makes all the difference for tomorrow. 🎗️

10/07/2026

September brought a rebound in private sector hiring, with employers adding 90,000 jobs, according to ADP. That's more than the 68,000 economists expected and well above August's revised gain of 36,000.

🏥 Education and health services led the way with 55,000 new jobs, followed by leisure and hospitality (22,000), manufacturing (17,000), and construction (15,000).

Not every industry shared in the gains. Financial activities lost 16,000 jobs, while professional and business services shed 11,000.

Pay continued to grow, too, with base pay rising 3.2% and gross pay increasing 4.7% from a year earlier.

The report offers another look at the labor market as the Federal Reserve weighs employment trends alongside persistent inflation.

Private job creation picked up in September after a brief slowdown.

10/07/2026

There's a reason so many women business owners half-joke that their real title is "everything."

More women than ever are starting and running businesses, and they're doing it at a faster clip than the market overall.

Census data show women now own more than 14 million businesses nationwide, a number that's grown 26 percent since 2012, compared with 19 percent growth for businesses as a whole.

A lot of that growth is happening online, where women-owned businesses tend to be more digitally integrated than those owned by men.

It also means millions of women are managing key decisions from scratch:

💼 How income gets paid (salary, distributions, or owner draws) and what that means at budget time

💼 Which retirement vehicle fits, and how much room there is to contribute

💼 How healthcare, disability, and other insurance get sourced without an employer default

💼 How the business gets valued, and what a sale or transition would actually look like

💼 How personal finances stay untangled from the business's finances

Wearing a tall stack of hats doesn't make entrepreneurship harder than it's worth. Plenty of women running these businesses would say the trade-offs are part of the deal. But it does mean the hats keep stacking up, one on top of the other.

This month is a good time to tip our own hats to the women doing it all at once.

10/05/2026

🛠️ The richest person in your town probably isn't a tech founder or someone in finance. It's more likely the dentist running four offices, or the owner of the HVAC company whose trucks are everywhere.

New research from economists Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick, based on IRS and Treasury data, found nearly 5 million U.S. households worth at least $5 million, holding combined wealth more than 13 times that of the Forbes 400.

A few patterns stood out:
➡️Most started their business themselves rather than inheriting it
➡️Most run ordinary, brick-and-mortar businesses rather than tech or finance
➡️Independence mattered more to them early on than getting rich ever did

🌭 Case in point: Dick Portillo started a hot dog stand in 1963 with just $1,100. Decades later, he sold the business he'd built for $1 billion.

Building wealth often looks much more ordinary and attainable than the headlines suggest. If growing or eventually stepping back from a business is part of your picture, that's worth talking through together.

Getting rich in the U.S. is still possible, but the most common path to wealth doesn't involve working for other people, according to a new book.

10/05/2026

Giving back to the community we call home is an important part of who we are at Moneywise Wealth Management.

This past Friday, our team had the opportunity to spend time volunteering with The Open Door Network, an incredible local organization providing shelter, support, and resources to individuals and families experiencing homelessness and those impacted by domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

As part of our monthly Moneywise Giveback, our staff rolled up their sleeves and pitched in wherever we could. We’re grateful for the opportunity to step away from our desks, work alongside one another, and support an organization doing such meaningful work in our community.

A big thank you to The Open Door Network for welcoming our team and for everything they do each day to help our neighbors find stability, hope, and a path forward.

We believe investing in our community is always a wise investment.