Serenity Wealth Management

10/09/2026

Choose Your Benefits Department

Holden Kiefer of Guiding Light Benefits reads the fine print hundreds of times a year so you don't have to. This Sunday he's translating this year's open enrollment changes on The Show.

Your plan probably changed this year. The question to ask is how it impacts you.

Don't miss it. This Sunday at 9 AM.

📻 Airs Sundays at 9 AM on NewsTalkSTL
🎥 Watch anytime: https://www.SerenityWealthNow.com/Show
📲 Follow for more
🕯️ Visit Guiding Light Benefits: https://www.TalkWithHolden.com

10/09/2026

Serenity Soundbite
🎃 Pumpkin COLA

It's pumpkin spice season, which means my one attempt at a pumpkin b**r for the year. Every October I think this is the year it clicks. Every October it lands somewhere between disappointing and average.

Next week marks another average tradition. Social Security announces its 2027 Cost of Living Adjustment (aka COLA), and forecasters are calling for around 3.5%. An average raise. But your costs didn't get the memo. Whatever the number is, it's measuring someone else's grocery cart.

And most company pensions never adjust at all. The few that do rarely keep pace with the life you actually live. That gap lands on your savings.

I'll keep taking my annual Pumpkin COLA. That doesn't mean I'll ever like it.

👉 Don't let your retirement income taste like this.

❓ When your raise falls short, what's covering the gap?

Let's continue the conversation.
📅 https://www.Calendly.com/Chris-T-Cooper/Conversation
🌐 https://www.SerenityWealthNow.com
📲 Follow for more

10/08/2026

Complicated problems are rarely solved at 2am. But they sure can keep you up at night.

Money is a source of stress for roughly 2 out of every 3 American adults.

Did we save enough? What if the market drops again? What happens when Mom can't live on her own anymore?

Most of the time the problem isn't the numbers themselves. It's simply NOT knowing them. And worry fills every blank with the worst possible answer.

Clarity won't make every problem disappear. But knowing where you stand can turn the 2am math into a plan. And having a plan can help you sleep a lot more soundly.

So take a deep breath. Relax. And remember. Serenity Now, Sanity Later.

10/08/2026

Stocks finished the third quarter mixed. The S&P 500 gained 2.03%, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.47%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 2.70%. Halloween is next on the calendar, with U.S. consumers expected to spend \$13.5 billion USD this year and 6.26 million Canadian children in their trick-or-treating years.

Stocks were mixed in the third quarter as economic, geopolitical, and corporate earnings news pushed the broad market higher while weighing on the Dow Industrials.

10/06/2026

You can't control the trail. You can control your footing.

Here's a clip from our recent episode of The Show with Chris Cooper and special guest Cody Jones of Wheels Up MTB.

🚲 SWN 117 - 10/04/26 | Finding Your Balance 🚲

Strap on your helmet. Here's what we ride through in this episode:

• Balance beats bravado. The one foot position that can keep you upright.
• The truth behind the old adage "It's like riding a bike."
• How the mobile mountain bike park can control every variable from a six inch curb to an eight foot gap.
• Why getting lucky once is not the same as being prepared every time.

📻 Airs Sundays at 9 AM on NewsTalkSTL
🎥 Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/GZxhGi21U1I
🎶 Listen on Spotify: SerenityWealthNow with Chris Cooper
🚲 Visit Wheels Up MTB: https://www.WheelsUpMTB.com
💬 Ready for your own conversation? Let's talk.

10/05/2026

A match gives you one strike. Once it's lit, there's no un-lighting it.

And whether it catches has a lot more variables than the strike itself. A steady hand. The direction of the wind. The right surface to strike against.

Some of life's biggest money moments work the same way. Retiring. Stepping in for aging parents. Receiving an inheritance. Selling a business. Getting your estate in order.

These are typically once-in-a-lifetime events, and they rarely wait until you're ready to strike.

Nearly half of retirees left work earlier than they planned, according to EBRI.
Only 24% of Americans have a will, per Caring.com.

Life has a way of lighting the match for you.

By the time the moment arrives, the window for meaningful decisions may have already burned out. The families who handle it well aren't lucky. They got ready to strike long before anyone reached for the match.

Which match are you holding?
Let's make sure you're ready to strike.

10/04/2026

🚲 Finding Your Balance 🚲

This week on The Show, we sit down with Cody Jones of Wheels Up MTB. After decades riding and guiding riders, he still leans on one lesson above all. Lead with the fundamentals first.

🎙️ Join Chris Cooper and Cody as they explain why balance beats bravado on the trail (and in life), bust the myth that riding skills just come back on their own, and step inside a mobile mountain bike park built to control one variable at a time, from a six inch curb to an eight foot gap.

A controlled field lets Cody isolate one variable at a time, so confidence gets built before a rider ever meets terrain that isn't as forgiving. The right guide tends to matter more than raw courage.

You can't control the trail. You can control your footing.

📻 Airs Sundays at 9 AM on NewsTalkSTL
🎥 Watch anytime:https://www.SerenityWealthNow.com/Show
🎶 Listen on Spotify: SerenityWealthNow with Chris Cooper
🚲 Visit Wheels Up MTB: https://www.WheelsUpMTB.com
💬 Ready for your own conversation? Let's talk.

10/02/2026

Finding Your Balance

Cody Jones of Wheels Up MTB has spent a lifetime on two wheels, and this Sunday he's showing how some lessons never go out of style on The Show.

Maintaining balance is not as automatic as you might assume.

Don't miss it. This Sunday at 9 AM.

📻 Airs Sundays at 9 AM on NewsTalkSTL
🎥 Watch anytime: https://www.SerenityWealthNow.com/Show
📲 Follow for more
🚲 Visit Wheels Up MTB: https://www.WheelsUpMTB.com

10/02/2026

Serenity Soundbite
🏈 The Fourth Quarter

Fall is fantastic. The weather cools off and the sports heat up. Hockey just dropped the first puck. Football is in full swing. Playoff baseball (but let's not talk about that). And the calendar just quietly flipped to the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter changes everything. The play calls tighten. Every possession matters. And the plans that worked at the beginning of the game are yesterday's news.

Your financial field deserves the same discipline. The plays you ran in February might not make sense in October. And once December 31 hits, most of this year's tax moves are off the board.

👉 Your tax return is decided while there's still time on the clock. April just reports the score.

❓ Who's calling the plays on your tax strategy this quarter?

Let's continue the conversation.
📅 https://www.Calendly.com/Chris-T-Cooper/Conversation
🌐 https://www.SerenityWealthNow.com
📲 Follow for more

10/01/2026

Nobody hacks your Netflix login for your watchlist. The criminals know where the money goes.

A 2026 FBI study found that over 12,400 victims lost more than $100,000 each, and the average reported loss across elder fraud victims for the year was $38,500.

A few healthy habits to help keep your security clean:

🔐 Two-factor authentication - It's the flossing of cybersecurity. Annoying? Absolutely. But not as much as an empty bank account. This one easy step can block more than 99% of automated attacks.
🔐 Use a password manager - Give every account its own password. A leaked login shouldn't be a master key. Let the manager do the remembering.
🔐 Freeze your credit - It can stop new accounts from being opened in your name. Not applying for a loan? Your credit doesn't need to be open for business.
🔐 Pause before clicking - Phishing is still the most reported cybercrime in the country. More than any other category the FBI tracks.
🔐 Check statements and turn on alerts - Not once a quarter. Not when you get around to it. All the time. Something caught in days is a lot easier to unwind than something caught months later.
🔐 Dentist Day is Data Day - Your teeth get a check-up twice a year. Your passwords deserve one too. Swap out any that are weak, reused, or showed up in a breach.

You don't need to become a security expert. Pick the one you've been putting off and knock it out this week. No appointment necessary.