Bailey Wealth Advisors

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.

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.

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.

Your ideal retirement may differ from reality, but we can work together to better align the two.

RE: Retirement How does your ideal retirement differ from reality, and what can we do to better align the two?

📱 More and more people are now using AI for financial questions.

And with tools like ChatGPT adding bank account integrations, personalized financial guidance is starting to feel more accessible than ever.

So yes, AI can help organize information, model scenarios, and answer technical questions faster than most people could on their own.

BUT… financial insight isn’t just a math problem.

AI cannot talk to you about the pros and cons of making a portfolio adjustment when stock prices are falling. It might struggle to fully weigh your family dynamics, health concerns, risk tolerance, competing goals, or what will actually help you feel confident in your decisions.

🧠 That is where human guidance still matters.

Vanguard’s long-running Advisor’s Alpha research highlights behavioral coaching as one of the most valuable aspects of a relationship.

Not stock picking. Not market timing.

Helping people manage emotion when the stakes are high.

🤝 The future is not AI vs. financial professionals.

The future is for those who use better tools while still bringing judgment, context, and a real understanding of the person behind the strategy.

🎓 Most of the conversation around college savings is about whether you're saving enough. Fewer people talk about what happens when a 529 plan outlasts the beneficiary’s education needs.

Maybe your child earned a scholarship. Maybe they chose a less expensive school. Maybe the plan changed entirely.

However it happened, you built this account carefully, and now it has more in it than you need.

For years, your options were limited: take a taxable distribution and pay a 10 percent penalty on earnings, or change the beneficiary and hope someone else uses it.

SECURE 2.0 added a third option. Not everyone knows that you can roll unused 529 funds directly into a Roth IRA for the account's beneficiary.

Here's what to know:

🔹 $35,000 lifetime cap per beneficiary

🔹 The account must be at least 15 years old

🔹 Annual rollovers are capped at that year's Roth IRA contribution limit ($7,500 in 2026)

🔹 Only contributions made at least 5 years before the transfer date qualify

🔹 No income limits apply (unlike regular Roth contributions)

This doesn't happen overnight.

If your 529 has more in it than your child will use, it may be worth a conversation before that money sits idle any longer.

📝 A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged education savings plan. Before choosing a plan, it's important to consider not only the state tax treatment but also any associated fees and expenses. Availability of a state tax deduction will depend on your state of residence, as state tax laws and treatment may vary from federal tax laws. If you make nonqualified distributions, earnings will be subject to income tax and a 10 percent federal penalty tax.

📝 To qualify for the tax-free and penalty-free withdrawal of earnings, Roth IRA distributions must meet a 5-year holding requirement and occur after age 59½. Tax-free and penalty-free withdrawals can also be taken under certain other circumstances, such as the owner's death. The original Roth IRA owner is not required to take minimum annual withdrawals.

#529

Retirement income planning isn’t just about how much you withdraw—it’s also about when you withdraw it.

Market downturns early in retirement can have a significant impact on how long your savings may last. That’s why understanding the sequence of returns and having a thoughtful withdrawal strategy can be so important.

Are your retirement withdrawals working with your long-term financial strategy—or against it?

Read the full article to learn more about systematic withdrawals and sequence-of-returns risk.

Systematic Withdrawals in Retirement Taking regular, periodic withdrawals during retirement can be quite problematic.

Do you know who just took the helm of the Fed?

Kevin Warsh is the new Federal Reserve Chair, though most people have never heard his name. Unlike his predecessors, he doesn't have an academic background. He spent the last decade and a half at a private investment firm, not in a university lecture hall.

He's already signaling a different approach, promising shorter statements and more transparency in how the Fed communicates.

That matters more than it might seem. The Fed Chair's decisions ripple through the economy, affecting everything from mortgage rates to car loans to credit cards.

Lately, we've heard one question more than any other: What does this mean for me? Honestly, it depends on your situation. But knowing who's steering the ship is where smart financial decisions start.

What's your biggest question about this shift at the Fed?



How familiar are you with the Federal Reserve? Here is a quick history.

The Fed and How It Got That Way Here is a quick history of the Federal Reserve and an overview of what it does.

Markets pushed higher in August as AI-driven optimism helped investors look past softer economic data. The S&P 500 gained 2.62% and the S&P/TSX Composite rose 2.96%, even as softening retail sales kept consumer spending in focus. Back-to-school season adds another data point to that story, with spending expected to reach \$146.8 billion in the U.S. and \$4.5 billion in Canada this year.

Monthly Market Insights | September 2026 The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 2.62 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 3.93 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged, adding 1.34 percent. The S&P/TSX rose 2.96 percent.1,2