Wilkinson Wealth Management

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

🎂 Japan just crossed a milestone: for the first time, more than 100,000 people there are age 100 or older.

According to the country's Health and Welfare Ministry, Japan now counts 107,677 centenarians, up nearly 8,000 from the year before. Almost 88 percent are women. The country's oldest resident, Kyoto's Fuyo Kishimoto, recently turned 114.

🎌 Officials point to progress in medical care, along with healthier lifestyles and diet, as part of what's driving the trend. And Japan isn't alone; life expectancies have been rising in many countries over the past several decades.

It's a good reminder of how many more years many of us may be around for, and why that's worth factoring into conversations about the road ahead, from healthcare to how a longer stretch of years gets supported financially.

That's exactly the kind of long-term thinking we like to talk through together.

The number of people aged 100 or older in Japan has surpassed a record 100,000 this year. The latest figures from Japan's government underscore the country’s rapid aging and population decrease.

10/05/2026

Cyber criminals pay extra attention to accounts tied to money.

A 2026 FBI study found that over 12,400 of those victims lost more than $100,000 each, and the average reported loss across elder fraud victims that year was $38,500. Here are a few habits to fine-tune your digital security this month:

🔐 Turn on multi-factor authentication everywhere it's offered. Yes, it’s annoying, but according to a 2026 CISA report, using it makes an account roughly 99 percent less likely to be broken into. It only takes a minute to set up.

🔐 Give every account its own password. Reusing one password means one leaked login unlocks everything else. A password manager handles this without requiring you to remember dozens of them.

🔐 When you go to the dentist, put a reminder on your calendar to also change your passwords. Changing passwords often makes your accounts just that much harder to reach.

🔐 Pause before clicking. Phishing remains the most commonly reported cybercrime in the country, more than any other category the FBI tracks.

🔐 Check statements regularly, and turn on account alerts. Catching something small and wrong early is a lot easier to unwind than catching something large and wrong months later.

🔐 Consider freezing your credit if you're not actively applying for new credit or loans. This takes 15 minutes, one time.

None of this requires becoming a security expert. Pick the one or two that you've been putting off, and do it this week.

10/02/2026

What's one financial decision you've made that helped you feel more prepared for your future?

For many of the people we work with, it's not a single investment or product; it's taking the time to create an overall strategy.

🗓️ October is Financial Planning Month—which is all about how the pieces of your financial picture fit together to help pursue your financial goals.

It's about putting together a comprehensive approach that manages your investments and retirement, provides for your loved ones—all while staying flexible enough to adjust as things change.

💡 If you've been meaning to update your strategy or to create one for the first time, it's never too late to start.

10/01/2026

Some financial decisions get a second chance. A handful don't.

▪️ When you actually retire. In EBRI's 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, 46 percent of retirees left the workforce earlier than they expected.

▪️ Stepping into a parent's finances. A 2026 Care.com report found sandwich-generation caregiving duties typically begin around age 34.

▪️ Receiving an inheritance. Ohio State research found nearly one in five people who inherited $100,000 or more had spent or lost the entire amount within two years.

▪️ Selling a business. For a typical owner, roughly 80 percent of their net worth is tied up in the business itself, per the Exit Planning Institute.

▪️ Writing (or updating) a will. Only 24 percent of Americans currently have a will, down from 33 percent in 2022, according to Caring.com.

None of these moments announce themselves on schedule. The families who handle them well are usually the ones who started talking years before circumstances forced their hand.

09/30/2026

📌 Higher rates sting borrowers, but they can be a real win for savers.

As rates rise, banks may increase the yields they offer on savings products to attract deposits. The average U.S. savings account still pays just 0.64% annual percentage yield. Some high-yield accounts are paying more than six times that, up to 4.2%, for the exact same deposit.

🔎 Certificates of deposit, or CDs, can offer even higher rates, but the tradeoff is access: your money is locked in for a set term, and pulling it out early usually costs a penalty.

Higher yields don’t erase the effects of inflation, and they won’t necessarily transform household finances. But if your savings account is still earning close to that 0.64% average, that gap alone might be worth a second look.

The Federal Reserve recently raised interest rates for the first time since 2023.

09/30/2026

Will your future income keep pace with the life you are preparing for?

In October, the Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2027 will be announced.

The annual adjustment is designed to help benefits keep up with inflation, but the same principle can be applied more broadly.

Your retirement income may need to be adjusted as your life, expenses, and priorities change.

Healthcare, insurance, travel, home maintenance, and support for family members can all affect the income you may need to generate.

Ask yourself:

▪️ Has your expected retirement spending changed?
▪️ Are certain future expenses rising faster than you thought?
▪️ Does your income strategy account for inflation?
▪️ Are you strategizing for the lifestyle that you budgeted for years ago?

A thoughtful retirement income strategy should evolve as your life and expenses change.

09/29/2026

What would you tell your 25-year-old self about money?

Getting insight from people who’ve been in your shoes can be powerful when you are young.

Here’s ours:

💡 Time is more powerful than timing.

At 25, it can feel like you have forever to start investing. But the biggest advantage you have isn't picking the perfect investment—it's giving your money more years to grow.

If we could go back, we'd say:

🔹 Start investing before you think you're "ready."
🔹 Build sound habits over chasing returns.
🔹 Lifestyle inflation is sneaky; don't let every pay rise become a spending rise.
🔹 An emergency fund isn't boring. It can help when you least expect it.
🔹 You don't need to know everything to get started.

What would you add?

Drop your best insight in the comments. Someone who's 25 today may need to hear it.

09/28/2026

🌴 More Americans are deciding that enjoying life now matters just as much as making financial progress for later.

A recent SoFi survey found that 72% of Americans would be willing to make slower progress toward their financial goals so they can spend more time with family, travel more, and prioritize meaningful experiences.

That doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning long-term goals. In fact, 59% of respondents said enjoying life is how they define financial progress, compared with 27% who pointed to owning a home.

The challenge is finding a balance between what matters now and what matters later. ✈️ That can mean making room for a vacation, concert, or family event while still keeping an eye on retirement savings and debt.

But charge that trip to a credit card and carry a balance, and interest can turn a two-week memory into a much longer bill.

What does financial progress look like to you: reaching the next milestone, enjoying more of life now, or some mix of both?

SoFi found 72% of Americans are willing to make slower progress on financial goals to prioritize family, travel and meaningful experiences.