Wendy Marsden (CFP®, CPA)

Wendy Marsden focuses in the
following client markets or areas of practice:

Business Owners

College/Education Planning

Investment Advice with Ongoing Management

LGBT Couples and Families

Retirement Planning & Distribution Rules

Tax Planning

Planning Specialties

Wendy Marsden, CPA, CFP®, RIA is a fee-only fiduciary financial professional who sells no products. A CPA who specialized in taxes for individuals with complex tax situations, she worked as a tax accountant using the name Tea & Taxes starting in 1992 while she raised her children from her home office. She developed a reputation as a thorough tax accountant who looked at the whole financial picture, often offering financial advising to her people as well as tax preparation.

In 2014 she received the Certified Financial Planner(TM) credential and added comprehensive financial planning services to her practice. Tax issues loom as a large part of retirement planning for people with retirement accounts and Wendy frequently finds significant tax savings to people trying to create a retirement cash flow. With two kids in their twenties and one just entering college, Wendy also specializes in strategizing for financial aid. Another core talent involves helping people get launched, providing education in debt management and basic skills in investment management to do-it-yourselfers.

In 2015 she registered as an investment advisor in Massachusetts and launched ProsperiTea Planning as the successor business to Tea & Taxes. As a member of the Alliance of Comprehensive Planners, the community of tax-focused financial planners operating under the retainer model, she works with a virtual community of affiliated professionals providing depth and support. She is also a member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and has been accepted as a Dimensional Fund Advisor.

Additional Information

As an investment advisor, Ms. Marsden is actively passive: she uses low-cost index funds as often as possible to build a diversified portfolio that is periodically rebalanced to improve performance and reduce risk. With a fee-only advisor your money is put to work earning for you, not for the investment company! She comes from a Boglehead background and appreciates the Dimensional Fund Advisor’s philosophy of having a high regard for research, actively going where the evidence leads.

Ms. Marsden’s graduate degree is from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass/Amherst. She participated in their prestigious two-year MBA program, but took all her electives in Accounting and graduated with the Masters of Science in Accounting rather than the Masters of Business Administration. She continued her education with independent coursework in financial planning.

Honors included graduating first in her class with her MS in Accounting, passing both the CPA and CFP® exams on the first sitting, and winning the Wall Street Journal Student Achievement Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement. Her bachelor’s degree is in Physics & Astronomy, with a minor in Computer Science, from Mount Holyoke College, class of ’86. She is a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood.

Fee-only planners can charge by assets under management (AUM) or by the hour or by the project, or under an annual retainer. The retainer model works the best for the holistic service that we offer at ProsperiTea Planning. Your investments may be in retirement plans or non-existent; your taxes may be easy or complex from year to year due to clever tax planning; your financial planning needs will rise and fall through-out your life. The retainer model puts a CPA CFP® professional on your team as a sort of financial concierge.

Come have tea with us!