Where Ospreys Learn to Fly by Robert Grant
ProsperiTea Planning’s advisors, Wendy Marsden CPA CFP® and Sam Plotkin CFA, provide comprehensive financial services to people under an annual retainer model. Services provided include investment advising, tax planning, tax preparation, and comprehensive financial planning services to individuals, estates, and occasionally small businesses. (Note that no new stand-alone tax preparation engagements are offered, sorry!)
Who should work with us? Current ProsperiTea Planning people include:
- People who are trying to integrate a windfall into their lives, determine realistic goals, and then give their money “marching orders”
- People in early retirement trying to get their social security and retirement investments integrated the smartest way, and iron out cash flow issues with the help of a CPA/CFP®/CFA
- People wondering when and how they can retire and/or send a kid to college (we’d be happy to help with a variety of goals, but these are the ones our current people have.)
- Couples starting out, trying to make decisions about when to buy a house, how to pay off debt, how to combine households, and how to budget
- About 20% of our people have investable assets less than $500,000, about 56% have more than a million, and the rest are somewhere in between.
- About 20% of our people are in the LGBTQIA community. (This is leftover from when we specialized in what used to be called “gay marriages”, but we now just call “marriages”.)
- About 50% of our people meet with us primarily through virtual meetings using cameras and microphones, and screen-sharing technology.
- 95% of our people like dogs. Sadly, we recently lost River, our Labrador Retriever, who saw herself as a comfort dog.
We hit the sweet spot that integrates taxes, investment advising, and financial planning. More specifically, our services include:
Fiduciary Investment Advising
Wendy Marsden and Sam Plotkin are registered as investment advisors with the Commonwealth of MA. Investment advisory services include:
- Reviewing and explaining asset allocations and investment options, and implementing an asset allocation strategy across your various types of investment accounts
- We have a professional custodian relationship with Charles Schwab and Altruist. In limited cases, you can keep your retail account, but then you’ll be making your own trades after consulting with us, rather than Sam or Wendy investing after consulting with you.
- Helping you roll over retirement plans from old jobs and consolidate IRAs, and develop a plan for IRA Roth conversions
- Cash flow management, including building bond ladders and setting up automatic withdrawals
- Help with managing Net Unrealized Appreciation inside an employee stock option plan
- Dimensional Fund Advisors has approved us to use their funds
Tax Planning and Preparation (for new comprehensive retainers and existing tax-only people)
Wendy Marsden is a Certified Public Accountant who, for twenty years, specialized in income taxes for individuals and small businesses and, when regrettably necessary, estates and trusts. We are not accepting any new tax preparation engagement except for ProsperiTea Planning retainers. Services included in the retainer price are:
- Tax preparation for individuals, trusts, estates, S Corporations or Partnerships, Self-employed, especially those with businesses at home, and landlords
- Tax Planning
- Planning for drawdowns of tax-deferred retirement accounts
- Planning for quarterly estimated taxes
- Tax planning for asset sales and windfalls
- Tax planning for bracket management (Roth conversions, using solar or other tax credits)
- Tax planning for capital gains and/or losses
Comprehensive Financial Planning
Tax planning and investment advising work best when we manage the taxes and investments to achieve your goals. Comprehensive Financial Planning is a bit like coaching, a bit like problem solving, and a bit like being a doctor. Services include:
- Getting you a comprehensive picture of where you stand, where you’d like to go, and how to get there.
- Helping people plan how to fund college and fill in financial aid forms
- Helping people face and conquer debt, including teaching budgeting and how to handle credit reporting agencies
- Educating you on financial terms, showing you how they apply in your own life
- Helping you roll over retirement plans from old jobs, consolidate IRAs, and develop a plan for IRA conversions
- Refinancing and home purchasing decisions
- Retirement planning for budgeting and drawdown rates
- Financial preparedness planning for both life’s big and little risks
- Legacy and estate planning
Limited Scope Financial Planning
On a limited basis, we do hourly or project-based meetings. These are scarce, as we can only fit in about one of these a month, and preference goes to people in the Tea & Taxes practice. New people seeking these may wish to check for a Garrett Network Planner to find a fee-only hourly planner if they can’t get in to see us in a timely way. Typical projects include:
- Helping people plan how to fund college and fill in financial aid forms
- Helping people face and conquer debt, including teaching budgeting and how to handle credit reporting agencies
- Reviewing and explaining asset allocations and investment options, advising you on how to make your own investment decisions
- Helping you roll over retirement plans from old jobs, consolidate IRAs, and develop a plan for IRA conversions
- Refinancing and home purchasing decisions
- Retirement planning for budgeting and drawdown rates
- Financial preparedness planning for both life’s big and little risks
Presenting to financial workshops and small business associations on topics including
- Tax Alpha: how to combine investing with tax strategizing to save on taxes, effectively making more from your portfolio.
- Tax issues of the self-employed
- Tackle your personal budget to get out of debt and reach your savings goals
- General investing advice
- Social security strategies
- Real Estate investing
Estate and Trust Services
- Fiduciary tax returns (for prior Tea & Taxes people and ProsperiTea Planning retainers only)
- Estate returns (for prior Tea & Taxes people and ProsperiTea Planning retainers only)
Please note that we do not do any auditing or other attest services on financial statements. We no longer offer bookkeeping or payroll services to new people. We are not accepting any new people seeking just tax prep alone.