Tess W.
Financial Educator, Speaker, Investor at Wealth with Tess
Women Empowerment
Education: Boston University
Hampstead, NH, USA
Biography
Tess is an investing educator and founder of Wealth with Tess, a financial education community that helps millennial women learn how to grow their money using simple investing strategies so that they can retire comfortably and live life on their terms.
After losing thousands in investing mistakes in her 20’s, Tess learned everything she could about wealth building and built her net worth from 0 to 1 million as a single 35 year old woman. Tess has recently been featured as an investing expert on Business Insider and Fox 5.
Now she’s on a mission to reduce the gender wealth gap and help more women build wealth and eventually become accredited investors. Thousands of women have attended her money mindset, financial education, and investing workshops and hundreds of women have joined her small group coaching programs.
Passion
You might already know that on average, women earn just 82 cents per dollar earned by men (for black women this number drops to only 63 cents). You might not know that there is also a gender wealth and investing gap.
When women make less and invest less, our proportional net worth takes a massive hit.
- Only 46% of millennial women (1980 to 1995) feel confident in their investing abilities.
- 71% of women choose to keep their assets in cash compared to 60 percent of men.
- 61% of millennial women report that worry about money has caused them to be emotionally or mentally unwell.
I often hear women say they are “bad at money” or “afraid of doing it wrong”. The reality is that personal finance and investing are skills that can be learned… just like yoga, needlepoint, or riding a bike.
It’s time we get more money in the hands of women because every woman deserves options.
Wealth is not just about being rich… it’s about having security and safety (the ability to walk away from a toxic situation is priceless).
It’s about having more time to do the things we love, with the people we care most about. It’s about freedom, flexibility, and the ability to make a larger impact.
More money in the hands of women is magic.
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
Everything is negotiable
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Best Story
Through real estate and stock market investing I grew my net worth to 1.3 million by 35 as a single woman but I wasn't always a savvy with money.
I graduated into a recession in 2009, applied to at least 30 jobs and was rejected from every single one.
Eventually I found work on a cruise ship as an Aerial Acrobat and high diver. Living and working on a cruise ship was an experience of a lifetime. It also allowed me to save money since my room and board were paid for and learn about investing from other cruise ships employees.
After leaving cruise ships, I made some big investing mistakes thousands of dollars.
Thankfully learning the hard way taught me how to invest and it changed my life completely. My financial independence allowed me to leave my full-time job at 35 and pursue my dream of creating a company that makes an impact.
Origin Story
Today I’m a confident investor, financial educator, and speaker.
But I used to have no idea where to start when it came to money and invdesting.
Not believing I was smart enough to invest on my own, in my 20’s I hired a financial advisor (a fiduciary, someone legally obligated to act in my best interest).
Of the several investing mistakes I made, hiring someone without getting my own financial education was the biggest one—I lost thousands of dollars and hundreds of thousands in potential growth opportunities, leaving me with a healthy amount of financial anxiety, shame, and regret.
By my late 20's I had become obsessed with personal finance and wealth building.
In my mid 30's I reached millionaire status as a single, 35 year old woman thanks to investing.
Watching my step dad, my only close family at the time, pass away slowly from brain cancer just months after he retired changed the work life paradigm for me.
The adage "life is short" hits different when you watch someone lose their life in front of you.
For me, it made me realize that I wanted to do work that was meaningful.
I wanted to create a business that made an impact.
What I knew was that through my financial challenges in my 20's, I had gained something that so many women didn't have yet - financial knowledge - knowledge that when implemented, has over time given me the option to walk away from the wrong relationship and flexibility to do work that I loved.
Less than 6 months after my stepdad's passing, I ran my first free beginner investing class.
3 years later I get to wake up every day and help more women get on the path to financial independence.
Now I own the company and community of my dreams that works to put more money in the hands of women through jargon and judgement free financial education. I couldn't be more grateful.