Retirement Resilience Explorer

Not one predicted future: test how spending, the survivor and heirs fare under several different futures.

The numbers can be sobering. Let's see what might help.

Experimental Canadian prototype, not a financial plan. Uses 2026 federal and selected provincial tax rules with simplified assumptions. Quebec and the territories are not supported. Later budgets, brackets and benefit changes are not forecast and must be confirmed separately. Future thresholds are assumed to retain 2026 purchasing power, even where currently not indexed. Returns are illustrative, not forecasts. GIS is optional and approximate; provincial benefits and other refundable benefits, housing, debt, probate, AMT and estate administration costs are excluded. Non-registered investments equity growth and assumed foreign dividends, bond income and cash/GIC-like interest use simplified tax accounting; fees are not deducted separately. Use return assumptions net of investment fees. Foreign withholding credits and capital-loss relief are excluded. Pension and survivor estimates must come from your own records.

Amounts are in today's (2026) dollars. Prefilled numbers are examples, not recommended assumptions. Inputs are not sent to our server.

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What does a comfortable year cost?

Province of residence for both spouses

Assumed unchanged throughout the projection. Tax rules use a 2026 reference; confirm future changes separately. Quebec and the territories are not modeled.

Enter annual spending in thousands of dollars: 40 means $40,000 per year.

Essential annual spending

thousand dollars

Discretionary annual spending

thousand dollars

Essential means costs you cannot readily cut. Discretionary means travel, hobbies and other flexible spending. Both keep their purchasing power; shocks add to essential costs.

Spending before retirement (optional)

Use different spending while either spouse is still working

Otherwise the spending above applies throughout. Separate working-life amounts apply while either living spouse is before their stop-work age, even with zero employment income. Retirement spending starts when both living spouses have stopped. Survivor percentages and essential-cost shocks still apply. Include mortgage and family costs in the appropriate period.

Annual employment income below is in thousands of dollars: 80 means $80,000 per year. Essential and discretionary spending above also use thousands.

You

Age in the first projection year (2026)

Age you stop working

Annual employment income until retirement

thousand dollars

Last living age to test

Your spouse

Age in the first projection year (2026)

Age you stop working

Annual employment income until retirement

thousand dollars

Last living age to test

Survivor share of household spending

This percentage applies to both essential and discretionary spending after the first death, not to benefit payments. It is a planning assumption, not a rule that expenses halve.

How does this explorer test retirement uncertainty?

Compare non-registered-first and registered-first withdrawals, with TFSA last, across 12 illustrative futures. Tests include bad returns early in retirement, the same returns in reverse order, work ending up to five years earlier, high inflation, unexpected expenses, care costs, living to 100 and earlier deaths.

Sequence risk means that the order of investment returns can matter when you withdraw money, even if the set of returns is identical. The explorer compares those orders, reports unfunded spending rather than borrowing, and estimates survivor affordability and an after-tax estate. The tests are not forecasts or probabilities.

Federal and selected provincial tax rules use a 2026 reference, not a forecast of future law. Later changes need separate confirmation; future thresholds are hypothetical 2026 purchasing-power assumptions. Estimates combine published 2026 rates and credit amounts with final-return structures; recheck the final 2026 tax forms before relying on them. First-death transfers assume qualifying spousal arrangements. GIS is an opt-in annual estimate; other refundable benefits, housing, debt, probate and specialized taxes are excluded. Review the full conventions in step three and the resilience introduction and limitations.