Talking about money can feel uncomfortable — especially when it’s with the people closest to us. Whether it’s partners, parents, or children, conversations about finances often get delayed, avoided, or reduced to passing comments. Yet, these are the very discussions that can bring the greatest sense of unity, understanding, and peace to a household.
That’s why our latest Family & Finance newsletter is all about fostering open, honest financial conversations across generations. Because when everyone in the family is moving in the same financial direction, the result isn’t just less stress — it’s true financial harmony. Think of it as the economic equivalent of four-wheel drive: everyone working together to move forward smoothly.
In this quarter’s edition, we explore the key questions that can transform family financial relationships, including:
The conversations older parents should have with adult children about estate planning, care preferences, and legacies.
The crucial questions adult children should ask their aging parents to ensure clarity, preparedness, and peace of mind.
And even the smart, curiosity-driven financial questions teens can ask their parents to start their financial journey with confidence.
No matter your age or role in the family, you’ll find insights designed to make those “hard” money talks easier — and more productive — than ever.
💬 Ready to start the conversation? Read the full edition of Family & Finance for practical questions, discussion guides, and expert insights on achieving financial harmony at home.
Happy Halloween! As you know, this season is a time for ghost stories and graveyards, vampires and zombies. But have you ever wondered why so much Halloween imagery, whether silly or serious, is associated with the dead? Why do kids dress up as the supernatural instead of, we don’t know, our favorite fruits and vegetables around harvest season?
Well, Halloween as we know it is really a combination of several, much older traditions. The three foremost, in our opinion, are the Christian season of Allhallowtide, the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, and the Mexican holiday of Dia de Muertos, or “Day of the Dead.”
All three of which are very much about death — though not necessarily in a scary way!
For all human history, people have been preoccupied with what happens to our loved ones after they die. Are they still around? Will we see them again? And for most of history, people didn’t live very long. War, disease, and famine were constant threats, meaning the idea of death was a constant companion. Much of a person’s life was working just to ensure that their family name would continue after them…so that maybe, somehow, they would be remembered after they were gone.
These questions and concerns helped pave the way for many of the various cultural traditions that would eventually shape Halloween. For example:
Allhallowtide begins on October 31 and lasts through early November. It is a period for remembering those who have died, especially martyrs and saints. During the Middle Ages, children would often go from house to house on the final day of Allhallowtide and beg for money, apples, or sweets called “soul-cakes.” This practice was called “souling”, and involved children chanting “a soul cake, a soul-cake, have mercy on all Christian souls for a soul-cake.”
Samhain takes place on November 1, but celebrations in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales would often start on October 31. According to Irish tradition, Samhain is a time when the boundary between our world and the “otherworld” grow thin — making it possible to communicate with the souls of our ancestors who have departed. Over time, many of the same rituals from Allhallowtide, like costumes, jack o’ lanterns, and souling were also practiced during Samhain. (And some of them probably started with Samhain first before getting adopted by Allhallowtide.)
Finally, Dia de Muertos traditionally begins anywhere from October 31 through November 6. A combination of Allhallowtide and indigenous Mexican customs, the “Day of the Dead” is a celebration of friends and family members who have passed away. It’s a chance to remember them by eating their favorite foods and decorating their graves while swapping stories and funny memories about their lives.
So How Did Halloween Get “Scary”?
In some areas of Medieval Europe, people believed the dead would use Allhallowtide as one last chance to get revenge on those who’d wronged them before moving on to the afterlife. Hollowed out vegetables — early jack o’ lanterns — were used as lanterns to ward off evil spirits, and people would wear masks and costumes so as not to be recognized by angry ghosts.
With Samhain, people believed that because the line between worlds were blurred, it was also possible to encounter supernatural spirits and faeries. Many of the same rituals, like costumes, jack o’ lanterns, and souling were also practiced during Samhain. (And some probably started with Samhain before getting adopted by Allhallowtide later.)
But at their core, both Allhallowtide and Samhain are more about commemorating the dead than fearing them.
Three festivals, all around the same time, all when the long day makes way for longer nights, all centered around those who have passed on. Today, of course, the usual Halloween traditions are dressing up in costumes, carving pumpkins, telling ghost stories, and trick-or-treating. Fanciful echoes of past customs and beliefs — and by practicing them, we are, in a way, still paying tribute to our ancestors.
Reading about these origins made us ponder our own family members and ancestors who are no longer with us. Some of them we knew; some we didn’t but have heard about. But many of are just names and dates — assuming we know about them at all. And that got us thinking: Between the scary movies and the endless replaying of “Thriller” on the radio, is there some other activity we can do that’s more in line with the original meaning of Halloween? We think there is!
Genealogy has become an increasingly popular hobby in recent years, from DNA testing to learn where our ancestors came from to scouring digital archives to find out who we are related to. We think that’s because, by gaining a greater understanding of where we come from, we can better understand who we are…and why.
Given that October is also National Family History Month, we think spending time constructing our family trees and learning more about our ancestors, is in perfect keeping with Halloween! By doing this, we are doing what our ancestors used to do: Commemorating and remembering those who came before us so that their memory never fades.
If you are interested in learning more about your ancestors, the National Archives has some tips on how to get started:
1. Start With Yourself. As they put it, “you are the beginning ‘twig’ on your vast family tree.” Write down all the information you can think about regarding yourself. Then do your parents, working backwards to your grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. Then, 2. Begin at Home. Look for information about your ancestors in newspaper clippings, birth and death certificates, military service records, diaries, letters, scrapbooks, photo albums, and other documents. Next, 3. Use Relatives as Sources. Visit, call, or write to your older relatives. Ask them what information they have collected, who they know, what they remember. They are the easiest and most vital link to the past. Finally, 4. Comb Federal, State, and County Records. Archives are held at every level containing census data, tax records, marriage certificates, deeds to property and more — all clues to the names and stories of those who gave us our family names.
Halloween is a time for sweets and spooky stories. But at its heart, it’s about something more powerful: Preserving the memory of our ancestors and connecting with the past…so that one day, we will be remembered, too. But however you celebrate the holiday, we wish you a very happy Halloween!
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The latest issue of our newsletter, The Retirement Road, is now available!
This edition covers the following topics:
🧛 Financial vampires, the actions or habits that can be a major drain on a person’s finances 💳 Doom spending, that feeling of financial unease that leads to improper spending. 👹 Common Medicare mistakes that are scarier than any monster when you’re 65 or older. 🎙️ Our Retire on Purpose podcast: 401k Loans
The end of the year is fast approaching. It’s a time for breathing in the crisp Autumn air; maybe taking a drive to see the fall colors. A time for holiday preparations and indulging in every pumpkin-flavored drink known to man.
But it’s also a time for tax planning.
Now, most people don’t see it this way. Taxes are for March or April; maybe even January or February if you’re feeling particularly ambitious. Right? Well, while that mindset is perfectly understandable, there are some very simple — but extremely savvy — steps you should take in Q4 to potentially minimize taxes and maximize your options.
Now, we here at Minich MacGregor Wealth Management do not provide tax advice, but we can coordinate with your CPA or tax professional. So, as the year winds down, here are seven tax-related items that we highly recommend you talk to your accountant about.
Review Your Priorities and Time Horizons. Tax planning — as opposed to tax preparation — is all about looking ahead. It involves determining your priorities, your needs, and your desires, figuring out your timeline for achieving them, and then aligning that timeline with your tax situation. The first part is my job. The second is where your tax advisor comes in. That makes this a good time to chat with your tax professional to make sure they are aware of your lifestyle spending needs, philanthropic goals, anticipated liquidity events over the next ten years, and so on. This becomes the steering wheel for every technical choice made later.
Contribute to Retirement Accounts. One of the most important things you can do, from a tax standpoint, is ensure you have maximized your contributions to any retirement accounts you own before the end of the year. This is especially true of your 401(k), if you have one. All contributions to your 401(k) must be made by December 31 if you want to deduct them from your 2025 taxes. As a reminder, the 401(k)-contribution limit for 2025 is $23,500.1 (People over the age of 50 can contribute an additional $7,500.)
With IRAs, you technically have a little more time – all the way up until next year’s tax deadline, which is April 15, 2026. But my advice is to take care of those contributions now, as it’s easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of the spring tax season. (Contributing earlier can also help you potentially take advantage of certain Roth IRA conversion strategies, but this is something we should talk about personally, so we won’t go into detail about that here.)
The IRA contribution limit for 2025 is $7,000.1 (People over 50 can also make an additional $1,000 in “catch-up contributions” if they are behind in saving for retirement.)
Take Advantage of Charitable Contributions. Most people donate to charity because they want to make a difference in the world. But philanthropy brings tax benefits, too. For example, if you itemize your deductions, as opposed to taking the standard deduction each year, you can deduct a portion of your donation to qualified organizations. (For the 2026 tax year and beyond, those taking the standard deduction can also claim a deduction on their charitable contributions, but for 2025, this option is solely for those who itemize.)
Those who are age 70½ or older can also make a qualified charitable distribution(QCD) of up to $108,000 from their IRA to the charity of their choice.2 This is classified as a tax-free gift and is not considered taxable income. And if you are at least 73 years old, a QCD can apply to your required minimum distribution (RMD) for the year, reducing the amount of taxes you’d need to pay on it, and potentially even keeping you from moving into a higher tax bracket.
Harvest Your Losses (the Right Way). As you know, when you sell an investment that has increased in value, you must pay taxes on your capital gains. But when you sell an investment that has decreased, you can declare a capital loss. A loss can often be used to offset the taxes you pay on your gains, thus reducing your overall tax bill. This is known as tax-loss harvesting, and when done accurately and consistently, it can increase your after-tax returns by 1%.3 Over time, this can make a big difference! But it’s important to do this mindfully. You should always keep the wash-sale rule in mind, which prohibits selling an investment for the tax benefits but then buying a similar security within thirty days before or after the sale. And you should never sell a high-quality investment just for the tax benefits, even at a loss.
Optimize the Character and Timing of Investment Income. Along similar lines, being mindful about when and why you take income for your investments can have a surprisingly large impact on your taxes. By deliberately realizing or deferring gains, and by managing qualified dividend income versus income derived from interest, you can potentially reduce the amount of taxes you need to pay in the future. Now, this step requires some in-depth planning to be done properly, so we would be happy to chat with your tax professional if we can be of any assistance.
Audit-Proof Your Documentation. No one has ever enjoyed going through a tax audit. The good news is that one of the best ways to avoid that stress is relatively simple: Ensure you have a clean, mindful documentation process. This involves the proper storage of your financial documents, knowing how long to keep each one, and most importantly, which documents are most important. Your tax professional should be able to give you guidance on this but let us know if you have any questions.
Build a Baseline Tax Projection Before Tax Filing Season. Last, but certainly not least, work with your tax professional to determine:
What your expected Adjusted Gross Income will be for 2025
What ordinary and capital gains brackets you will likely fall under
Whether you will have any exposure to the Alternative Minimum Tax. By doing this now, you will decrease the likelihood of any unpleasant surprises once tax filing season starts next year.
So, there you have it. Before the trees are bare, or you start planning for the holidays in earnest, work with your tax professional on these seven items. Not only will it help you enter 2026 with increased confidence, but it will benefit your financial situation for years to come. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or if there is anything that we can do to help!
When you hear the phrase “the stock market” in the news, it’s usually shorthand for a market index — but what exactly does that mean?
Market indices, like the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite, are some of the most-watched measures in finance. They shape headlines, move markets, and give investors a snapshot of performance. But because each index is built differently, they can tell very different stories about “the market.”
That’s where our new infographic comes in. 📊
It breaks down:
What a market index is and why it matters
How different indices (like the Dow vs. the S&P 500) are structured
Why index values look so different — and what those numbers really mean
How investors can actually use indices in practice
Whether you’re new to investing or just want a clearer understanding of the numbers behind the headlines, this guide makes it simple.
Today, we celebrate 16 years of Minich MacGregor Wealth Management, and we want to thank you for being an essential part of our journey.
Your trust and support have allowed us to grow, serve, and continue our mission of providing thoughtful guidance to help you navigate your financial future. We are truly grateful for the confidence you place in us and for the opportunity to walk alongside you through life’s milestones.
From all of us at Minich MacGregor Wealth Management — thank you for your partnership. We look forward to many more years together.
Just a heads up: This message is a little vanilla.
No, we don’t mean it’s boring. (Or at least, we hope it’s not!) We mean it’s about vanilla, the ingredient. You know, the one used to make delicious ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, crème brulee, and even coffee when you’re in the mood. The one that comes in those little bottles you used to secretly smell as a kid when nobody was looking. (Or was that just us?)
Vanilla feels like it’s in everything. It’s such a common, familiar flavor that we often use the word as a synonym for something basic or uninteresting, even though society can’t get enough of it. But it’s also one of the most expensive spices in the entire world. Why?
Because as ubiquitous as it is, it is ridiculously difficult to cultivate.
It’s also an example of why we think Labor Day is such a unique and underrated holiday.
Vanilla, in its natural form, is a type of fruit that first originated in Central America. Spanish conquistadors introduced the fruit to Europe in the 1500s, but it wasn’t until the 1800s that vanilla exploded in popularity. And for that, we have one person to thank: A twelve-year-old boy named Edmond Albius…who was also a slave.
In the 1820s, the same decade when Edmond was born, French business owners tried importing vanilla to the island of Réunion, an island off the eastern coast of Africa. But the move was a flop. The plants simply would not bear fruit, because none of the local insects could pollinate them. As a result, it looked as though the entire vanilla venture was destined to die on the vine.
Enter Edmond Albius. Born into slavery, Edmond was also an orphan, whose mother died during childbirth. He never knew his father. But as a young boy, Edmond showed an incredible aptitude for botany. One day, his enslaver, a man named Beamont, was walking through his gardens when he noticed something he’d never seen before: Two vanilla pods growing on a twenty-year old vine…the only vine on his property that was still alive. Beamont asked Edmond how this could be and was shocked at the reply: This twelve-year-old-boy had invented a way to fertilize vanilla plants by hand! The process was like a form of delicate surgery. Using a thin stick or even a blade of grass, Edmond would carefully lift a flap that separated the plant’s reproductive organs, and then, with his finger, smear sticky pollen inside. Here’s how Beamont later described it in a letter:
“In the watermelon, the male and female flowers occur on different plants, and I taught this little boy, Edmond, how to marry the male and female parts together. This clever boy realized that the vanilla flower also had male and female elements and worked out for himself how to join them together!”1
Soon, Edmond was teaching his method to slaves around the island. As a result, in less than twenty years, Reunion was able to export two tons of vanilla beans. In twenty-five years, that number grew to twenty tons. And by the turn of the 20th century? Over two-hundred tons!1
Today, Edmond’s method is still the only way to produce real vanilla. The process simply cannot be automated or done by machines; it must be done by hand in a single twelve-hour period each year. By thousands of hands, in fact, in Madagascar, Indonesia, and other places. And cultivation is just the first step! Planting, tending, and most of all, harvesting vanilla pods involves some of the most back-breaking, labor-intensive work there is. Once those steps are done, the vanilla must also be sweated, dried, cured, graded, and packed. All done by workers; all done by hand; all requiring tens of thousands of hours’ worth of work. All to ensure we have that tiny little bottle of vanilla whenever we need it.
So, what does this have to do with Labor Day? Here’s how we think about it. As you know, we have holidays to celebrate our country. To celebrate love. To celebrate presidents. To celebrate giving and gratitude. But Labor Day is about something even more fundamental. It’s a chance to celebrate each other. To recognize and appreciate that our daily needs and wants are produced by the hard work and ingenuity of ordinary people, here at home and around the world. The food we eat. The clothes we wear. The houses we live in. The cars we drive and the roads we drive on. All this and more are provided for us thanks to the hands and minds of workers.
Edmond’s remarkable discovery eventually helped him secure his freedom, yet despite Beaumont’s efforts to recognize him, the government denied him any official reward or payment. Others even attempted to claim his work as their own. As a result, Edmond sadly lived out his life in poverty. It wasn’t until nearly a century later that historians began to truly grasp the significance of his discovery. Stories like his remind us why we set aside days like Labor Day — to honor the often-unsung individuals whose work shapes our world.
So, as we finish off this year’s Labor Day BBQ with a perfect scoop of ice cream or a delicious helping of peach cobbler, let’s spare a thought for people like Edmond Albius and everyone else who makes it possible. And let’s remember that the holiday isn’t just about having a day off from labor. It’s about giving thanks for the fruits of our labor. Including — but certainly not limited to — one of the most common, ubiquitous fruits of all: the vanilla bean.
From everyone on our team, we wish you a happy Labor Day!
We are excited to introduce our update to our monthly newsletter. Our newsletter is designed to keep you informed with timely financial insights, practical strategies, and resources tailored to your goals.
Each month, you’ll receive updates on topics that matter most — from market trends to planning strategies — all designed to help you make confident decisions for your financial future.
Quarterly Focus: Family & Finance Four times a year, our newsletter takes a deeper dive into the important intersection of family and financial planning. In these quarterly features, we’ll share strategies, tips, and guidance to help you and your loved ones build, protect, and preserve wealth across generations.
Protecting your personal information and assets is more important than ever. Scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated, targeting people through email, phone calls, social media, and even dating apps.
To help you stay safe, we’ve created a Scam Definitions and Prevention Guide. This resource explains common scams and what scammers are doing today:
Government/authority impersonation: Fake notices or urgent calls claiming to be from the IRS, SSA, or law enforcement.
Business Email Compromise (BEC): Spoofed or hacked email accounts requesting wire transfers or changes to payment details.
Tech support scams: Pop-ups or calls insisting your device is infected and urging remote access or payment.
Romance & “sweetheart” scams: Long-game relationships that pivot to urgent requests for money or crypto.
Sweepstakes & lottery fraud: “You’ve won!” messages that ask for fees, taxes, or banking info.
Investment & crypto schemes: “Too good to be true” returns, pressure to act fast, or unregistered platforms.
Real estate fraud: Fake wiring instructions for down payments or closing funds.
You’ll also find practical tips on recognizing warning signs, preventing fraud, and steps to take if you ever fall victim.
In most quarters, we typically send a short “market recap” message looking back at the previous three months in the markets. This quarter, we want to do something a little different by looking ahead. Not to make predictions — we don’t waste our time with that sort of thing here at Minich MacGregor Wealth Management — but to mentally prepare ourselves for various possibilities. The more prepared we are, the easier it will be to maintain a long-term perspective rather than overreact to headlines.
To that end, let’s look at some of the storylines our team is following that could have an impact on the markets in the second half of the year.
Tariffs. Back in April, the sweeping slate of tariffs enacted by the Trump Administration sent markets into a tailspin. Many of those tariffs were eventually canceled or suspended, and markets normalized. Since then, investors have entered a kind of “worst is over mindset.” As many tariffs — which were originally suspended until July 9 — were further pushed back into August, the markets have continued to climb, unaffected by trade war fears.
In recent weeks, however, President Trump has again begun suggesting the possibility of new tariffs against various countries.1 Furthermore, many of the “Liberation Day” tariffs announced back in April that were subsequently paused are set to go into effect in August.
If tariff troubles begin rising again, it will be interesting to see whether investors react negatively, or whether the idea of tariffs has been normalized to the extent that it doesn’t really provoke a strong reaction. Either way, while various trade deals have begun to materialize, we should still prepare ourselves for tariffs to continue influencing the pulse of the markets moving forward.
Inflation. One reason tariffs make both economists and investors nervous is because they can stoke inflation. Since many tariffs have been suspended or were never enacted, inflation has remained low for the year, but there are signs the tariffs that are in play are finally starting to have an effect. Consumer prices rose by 0.1% in May, and a further 0.3% in June, raising the overall inflation rate to 2.7% over the past twelve months.2 Those aren’t huge increases, but the fact that they apply to a wide variety of goods suggests that companies are now passing on the cost of tariffs to customers.
For investors, this matters because it has a direct impact on…
Interest Rates. The task of fighting inflation belongs to the Federal Reserve, which has a mandate to stabilize prices. The Fed’s ability to do this largely rests on its ability to drive interest rates.
President Trump has been very vocal about his desire for the Fed to lower interest rates quickly and significantly to help stimulate the economy. The Fed has been resistant to that idea, however, preferring to see how tariffs will affect inflation first. If inflation does continue to climb, it’s extremely unlikely the Fed will lower rates any time soon. Depending on how things go, it’s even possible the Fed could raise interest rates again.
It’s been said that interest rates act like ankle weights on stocks, in that they make it harder for them to rise and easier to fall. Higher interest rates can depress both spending and borrowing, two things companies need to generate revenue, which is one of the things investors look for when deciding where to invest. But there’s another reason rates matter right now: If they remain elevated, or even rise higher, the result could exacerbate our fourth and final storyline:
D.C. Drama. Due largely to his frustration with higher interest rates, President Trump has frequently criticized the Fed’s chairman, Jerome Powell. On several occasions, the president has even suggested he might fire Powell.3 (At other times, he has also said he has no intention of doing so.)
Under normal circumstances, this sort of beltway drama is interesting only to other politicians — but the idea of a president firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve is anything but normal. You see, the Fed has historically functioned as an independent central bank, meaning its decisions do not need to be approved by either the president or Congress. Why does that matter? Because it gives the Fed freedom to accomplish its mission of maximum employment and stable prices during times of economic stress without having to seek approval first. It also has historically shielded the Fed from being overly influenced or controlled by other factions in Washington. In other words, it enables the Fed to focus on policy over politics.
Whether President Trump can legally fire Powell is an open question. The reason this could affect the markets, though, is because it would signal that the Fed’s independence is effectively over. That, in turn, would change everything about how investors expect the Fed to act when it comes to monetary policy. In other words, it would throw a major wrench of uncertainty into the markets. And uncertainty, as we know, is ultimately what causes volatility.
So, there you have it. Some of these storylines may have a significant impact on the markets. Others may be complete nonfactors. The ultimate takeaway we must remember is to avoid overreacting to any of them. Remember: While storylines like this can drive the markets for weeks, months, even quarters, we are investing for years.
As always, our team will continue to keep a close eye on Washington and Wall Street, so you don’t have to. But if you have any questions or concerns as we move towards the end of the year, please don’t hesitate to let us know!
