MEA Wealth Advisors

11/04/2026

🦖 What does $47.3 million buy you? Apparently, a dinosaur named Jodi!

A rare Nanotyrannus skeleton sold at Sotheby's for $47.3 million, more than five times its original high estimate of $9 million.

The nearly 20-foot-long fossil is one of only three known examples of this smaller T. rex relative, which lived around 67 million years ago.

For decades, scientists debated whether Nanotyrannus was a distinct dinosaur or simply a young T. rex. Recent research supports its status as a separate genus.

Not bad for a dinosaur that spent millions of years underground! 🦴

A dinosaur that looks like a miniature T. rex is now one of the world's most expensive fossils. The rare skeleton of a Nanotyrannus sold for $47.3 million to a mystery buyer at auction in New York City.

11/03/2026

One investment gained 270 percent in the first five months of 2026. Two months later, it gave back 67 percent. 😳

Why do smart people chase numbers like that? Psychologist Daniel Kahneman said it best: "Stories trump statistics." 🧠

A hot streak always comes with a story. The story is what sells. The math is what stings.

Riches to rags is an old pattern, and so is the reverse. When a return looks too good to be true, give the story the same scrutiny you'd give the number.

If a market headline has your attention, run it past us before it runs your portfolio. 💬

10/31/2026

Not every monster wears a costume this month. Some show up as a text pretending to be your bank. 👻

Three cybersecurity myths worth burying this October:

🎃 "Some of my accounts are too small to bother with." False. Most attacks aren’t personal. Automated bots test thousands of accounts at a time, looking for a weak spot.

🎃 "Only older adults fall for scams." Absolutely false. FTC data has consistently shown adults in their 20s are reporting fraud, too.

🎃 "I'd know a phishing email if I saw one." Maybe once. AI-generated phishing has erased the classic tells: broken grammar, misspellings, and awkward phrasing.

This time of year, it's worth taking a moment to look past the obvious scares and pay attention to the sneakier ones, too.

10/29/2026

Nationwide's 2026 study surfaced three key lessons from parents:

🎯 Not starting early enough.
More than 25 percent of recent retirees wish they had started sooner. Fifteen years of compounding early in a career can make a HUGE difference.

🎯 Not raising the contribution rate as your income grows.
Thirteen percent of recent retirees wish they had contributed more to their savings each year.

🎯 Claiming Social Security at 62.
More than a third of boomers plan to claim benefits the moment they become eligible, even though doing so cuts the monthly benefit by 25 to 30 percent for life.

According to the SSA, waiting past full retirement age adds 8 percent per year, up to age 70.

Across the research, three things seem to matter most:

1️⃣ Starting early
2️⃣ Getting an outside perspective rather than relying on instinct alone
3️⃣ Treating retirement as something that unfolds over decades rather than a single date on the calendar

10/26/2026

How many years before you are ready to be “retired”?

It’s one of the most important numbers yet.

TIAA's 2026 longevity literacy research found that workers who expect a shorter retirement save less consistently than those who expect a longer one.

That makes sense, but it also means the people who assume their retirement will be short are the same ones who may be building portfolios with shorter time horizons.

Once someone has already reached 65, the numbers shift.

According to Social Security Administration data:

📌 A 65-year-old man has roughly a 24 percent chance of living past 90

📌 A 65-year-old woman's chances are higher, closer to 35 percent

📌 For a 65-year-old married couple, there is about a 50 percent chance that at least one spouse lives past 90

The practical implication is not "assume you will live to 100."

It’s that a retirement income strategy built around the “average lifespan” often assumes a person will die on schedule. Most people do not.

If retirement is on your horizon, the question to ask is, "What happens to my income strategy if I live to 95?"

10/19/2026

What happens to your cash flow when you stop earning a paycheck?

The 2026 EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey caught something interesting about that shift.

📊 Among workers, 33 percent say they turn to a financial professional for guidance.

📊 Among retirees, that number climbs to nearly 40 percent.

National Retirement Security Week (October 19–25 this year) is a reminder to check whether your strategy is evolving with your lifestyle priorities.

If retirement is within a few years, the practical step is not rebuilding the strategy today.

It's identifying the two or three moving pieces that are no longer theoretical, the day you stop working, and consider working with a financial professional who can help guide you.

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

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

For some, the second Monday in October marks Columbus Day, a commemoration of exploration and its role in shaping American history.

For others, it’s Indigenous Peoples' Day, a time to honor the cultures, histories, and contributions of Native communities.

Both observances point to something worth sitting with: how differently history can be remembered and how many perspectives make up a single story.

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.