CashRunway — Does the money last?
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Table notes
Dollars Every figure is in today's terms — real, inflation-adjusted — not nominal future dollars.
x123,456 The FHSA closed that year; the balance transferred tax-free into that person's RRSP.
Shortfall Still unmet after Chequing (down to its buffer) → Savings → Non-reg → GIC → RRSP → TFSA → chequing buffer withdrawals, in that order. 0 means the year was fully covered; the first non-zero year is when the money runs out.
Into / Out of accounts Money added to accounts that year (surplus income, RDSP contributions and grants, FHSA refunds, inheritances) and money withdrawn from them (including mandatory RRIF and RDSP payouts). "Out of accounts" means withdrawals, not tax deductions.
Total savings All accounts added together, at face value. Excludes home equity — that has its own column and is never drawn on. Because it counts pre-tax RRSP dollars alongside tax-free TFSA dollars, compare plans on Total after tax instead.
RRSP — tax still owed The RRSP is the only account here holding money that has never been taxed. Every dollar in it is taxable on the way out, so it is worth noticeably less than a dollar of TFSA or chequing. Withdrawals during life are grossed up to cover the tax; anything still in the account at death rolls over tax-free to a surviving spouse, but with no spouse the whole remaining balance counts as income on the final return, where a large balance can be taxed at top-bracket rates. The Tax owed on RRSP column estimates that bill for each year, and Total after tax is your savings net of it.
Total after tax Total savings minus the tax still owed on the RRSP — the honest comparison figure, and the one to use when weighing what actually reaches you or your beneficiaries.
Pension A defined-benefit workplace pension, taxed as income like work earnings or a RRIF withdrawal. Set the indexing percentage carefully — a fully indexed pension holds its value in today's dollars, while an unindexed one keeps only about $0.61 of every dollar after 20 years at 2.5% inflation, so the column falls year by year. After the pensioner dies, the survivor benefit percentage keeps being paid to a surviving partner; a single-life pension pays 0% and stops.
RDSP An individual disability plan, not a joint account, so it sits with one person — set which one with the beneficiary toggle in the RDSP section. That person's age drives the grant cut-off and the mandatory payout, the payout is taxed as their income, and the balance grows at their fee rate.
Chequing Always earns 0% (erodes with inflation); drawn first to cover any shortfall, but only down to the chequing buffer — the everyday float each living member of the household keeps back. The buffer is spent only as a last resort, after every other account is empty, so it pulls the money-runs-out year in rather than stranding cash. The float is never topped up, so this column shows it shrinking in today's-dollar terms even though the account still holds the same cash. Holding it has a real cost: money parked at 0% for decades gives up both inflation and the return it would have earned invested. Set the buffer to 0 to draw chequing to zero.
Savings Earns its own configured rate; drawn next, and is also where leftover surplus beyond FHSA/TFSA room ends up.
GIC A guaranteed-rate slice split out of non-reg; drawn after Non-reg but before RRSP/TFSA.
Housing cost Rent (rising each year at the rent-increase rate, net of inflation), or the mortgage payment until its payoff year (then $0) — added to the shortfall calculation on top of the Living spend column, so Annual spend should exclude housing costs.
Home equity Home value minus a straight-line paydown estimate of the mortgage balance, plus any other property. Reference only — never included in Total savings or the money-runs-out calculation.
Household Person 2 can be excluded entirely, join in a chosen year (their starting balances/room appear that year, not before), and/or leave in a chosen year (a chosen % of their Chequing/Savings/Non-reg/GIC/RRSP/TFSA folds into Person 1's accounts; FHSA — and an RDSP with Person 2 as beneficiary — always leaves in full). Outside their active window, their income/CPP/OAS/room stop, along with the RDSP if it is theirs, and Living spend falls to the Survivor % — unless Person 2 was never included at all, in which case Annual spend is already treated as a single-person figure.
Not a tax return — tax is a graduated federal + provincial approximation, not the ITA. Non-registered holdings are now taxed: interest and eligible Canadian dividends each year (with the dividend gross-up and credit), the taxable half of gains realized to fund spending, and a deemed disposition of whatever is left on the final death. What that still misses: dividends are all treated as eligible Canadian ones, so put foreign dividends in the interest box where they belong; there is a single pooled cost base per person rather than one per security, and no capital losses or superficial-loss rules; and gains accrue untaxed until you sell, which fits a buy-and-hold ETF holder but is optimistic for a fund that distributes gains yearly. Savings and GIC interest is taxed in full each year on the same basis; both boxes are assumed non-registered, so a GIC held inside a TFSA should go in the TFSA box instead. RDSP payouts are split: the beneficiary's own contributions come back out tax-free and only the grants, bonds and growth are taxable, and a withdrawal made within ten years of a grant repays \$3 per \$1 to the government, capped at those grants. What that still misses: the split for a plan you already hold rests on the single percentage you enter rather than a real contribution history, provincial disability benefits and their own income tests are not modelled at all, and there is no bond (as opposed to grant) calculation — low-income years that would attract the Canada Disability Savings Bond earn nothing here. "Run simulation" is one deterministic path; "Run Monte Carlo" randomizes only the portfolio return across many trials — it's a check on return variability, not a full economic model.
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A deliberately simple year-by-year drawdown model. Edit any field below and press Run. Hover or tab to a ? for an explanation of any field. The numbers you type in stay in your browser — there's no server, no account, and nothing you enter is ever uploaded anywhere. Defaults are placeholders, not real numbers — replace them with yours.