DIY Canadian Retirement Planning With Kyle Prevost
“Will I be OK in Retirement?”
“How much do I save this year if I don’t want to have to eat pet food when I’m 83?”
“What do most Canadians spend each month after they retire? I don’t even know where to start with this stuff!”
In response to questions like this, most mutual fund salespeople from major Canadian financial institutions (you can usually find them in big banks and strip malls) generally respond something along the lines of:
“Look, investing is the key here. Saving more is always better. Look at this chart – now here’s another chart that shows how awesome your life would eventually be if you saved more. Finally, here’s a third – really fantastic chart – and it shows that you’ll have [fill in # of millions here] if you invest with us, because we pick by far the best investments. After all, we help thousands of Canadians across the country everyday, we’re pros at this stuff.”
Then a year later (usually right around this time of the year – aka: “RRSP Season”) a lot of folks feel they should probably check in on their plan and/or realize they still don’t really know the answers to the questions they had the year before. They make their once-per-year appointment with their “adviser” and they are treated to some “free” coffee, great small talk about their family, maybe a chat about the weather and the local sports team. Finally, investments are discussed, reassurances are made, semi-complicated vocabulary gets tossed around… and the cycle repeats itself.
All the while, 2%+ is being funneled out of the client’s entire nest egg, and into the company’s earnings.
I know that this isn’t news to most Boomer & Echo readers. I’m preaching to the choir a bit here. But given that there is still over 5x as much money in Canadian mutual funds as there is in ETFs, I don’t think the message is getting through to too many people.
Wait – Who Is This Guy Again?
My name is Kyle Prevost, and I’m interrupting today’s regularly-scheduled Boomer and Echo programming to chat about retirement planning.
Big shout out to Robb for letting me reach out to you all and do my thing.
I’ve been writing and talking about personal finance in Canada for 16 years. You might have seen Robb and I chatting at the Canadian Financial Summit, and read some of my writing at Moneysense or MillionDollarJourney.ca over the years.
But it’s a recent project on DIY Canadian retirement planning that I wanted to highlight today. It’s the best resource that I’ve ever created and that I’m most proud of in my career.
I’m talking about the first ever online course for planning your Canadian retirement – at any stage of your life.
It’s called 4 Steps for a Worry Free Retirement – and you can find it here.
What’s So Special About an Online Course?
Sure, there is some really solid information out there on blogs and in books. But here’s the advantages that 4 Steps to a Worry-Free Retirement has over those products.
- Everything – all in one place. No more saving specific articles to come back to. Now it’s all tied together for you in a logical order, and you can come back to the information whenever you need a refresher or want to double check something.
- It gets instantly updated. For example, I just went through and filled in all of the new 2024 tax and CPP/OAS information. Any book you buy is out of date a few months after you purchase it.
- Passively reading something is not the best way for most people to thoroughly understand a topic. My course comes with original explainer videos, 25+ full-length interviews from the Canadian Financial Summit (including a couple with Robb), a downloadable/printable workbook, and concrete recommended steps to take action.
- Access to our virtual Worry-Free Study Hall. (Which is really a teacher’s attempt to name a private discussion group. It kind of looks like a Facebook discussion wall that only people in the course can see. Questions or answers can be posted anonymously. I answer all questions in this area, so that everyone can benefit from reading through other’s inquiries.)
How Do I Know This Thing is Any Good?
Don’t take my word for it. Hear what these Canadian personal finance experts had to say about 4 Steps to a Worry Free Retirement:
- Here’s a podcast with longtime Toronto Star columnist and university instructor Ellen Roseman – who thoroughly reviewed the course.
- Multi-decade retirement expert from Moneysense and the Financial Post, Jonathan Chevreau also took a look at the course. You can read his review here.
- If you are still in a podcast state of mind, I chatted with Kornel Szrejber on the Build Wealth Canada Podcast after he took the course. Mike Heroux (aka: The Dividend Guy) also had me on his podcast.
- I was even on the TV show Money Matters with Mike Braga. You can check out the episode here.
Here’s what fee-only financial planner and columnist Jason Heath (of Objective Financial Partners) had to say about the course.
“Kyle’s course can be a great resource for someone preparing for retirement or already retired. There is no single “right” way to manage your finances but what he does is distill many best practices into plain English for a layperson to help them figure out what is right for them. His background as a teacher definitely comes across in the course. Too many financial industry people do a poor job of conveying financial topics in a way that makes sense. The approach of the course is meant to teach and empower, and it definitely does just that.”
But – after all that – you’re still not sure if you want to invest the time, effort, and cash, I go one step further: A 100% money-back guarantee. Look, I’m not here to make a quick sale. If you’re not happy with the purchase, I don’t want you going around telling everyone that I’m a jerk. It’s really simple, if you don’t think the quick tax wins alone won’t easily save you the purchase price of the course – if you don’t think it’s worth your hard-earned cash – I’ll refund your order.
So How Much Does This Thing Cost Anyway?
In exchange for creating a resource that took thousands of hours to research and create + the commitment to keep updating the course AND the promise to answer your specific questions, the price tag is 500 bucks.
But – for the first 20 Boomer and Echo readers who sign up, I’m going to take a hundred bucks off the price tag. The promo code is: echo100. Make sure and click “Have a Coupon” on the order screen here, and then type in: echo100
Hey, I’m aware that $500 is a lot of money. It’s about half the cost of a university course these days.
If you look through this course and can honestly say that you don’t think it’s twice as useful as any university course out there – I’ll give you your money back.
That’s it.
No tricks. No hidden fees, kickbacks from big companies, or percentages taken out of your portfolio. No upsells to get to the “second magical VIP tier where you’ll get the REALLY good stuff”. Just a simple upfront price tag for a resource that I stand behind 100%.
Can I Get a Few Details About What’s In the Course?
You can check out the course website here to get a full sense of everything that is included.
But just to whet your appetite, here’s a sneak peak of the topics covered:
- How Much Do I Need to Retire?
- How Much Will My CPP Payment Be?
- How Much Will My OAS Payment Be?
- Decoding Private Pension Plans
- Safe Withdrawal Rates and the 4% Rule
- Working In Retirement
- What Should I Invest In?
- How to Buy and Sell Your Investments
- Decumulation: Withdrawing From Your RRSP, TFSA, and Other Accounts
- RRSP to RRIF Transitions
- Annuities – Buying a Pension
- Can You Retire With a Mortgage?
- Downsizing vs Reverse Mortgage vs HELOC
- Long Term Care Insurance
- Life Insurance in Retirement
- Retire Sooner with More Sunshine
- Bonus Resources (including a handy retirement-specific Tax Breaks Checklist)
I just want to quickly reiterate two things:
- There is no risk in trying the course. It has a money-back guarantee.
- The first 20 people to use the coupon code: echo100 get a hundred bucks off.
Would You Do Me a Favour?
I’m trying to get better at this self promotion thing. I’ve seen a lot of mediocre-or-worse products sell like hotcakes because they promised the “silver bullet” to all of life’s problems.
Usually they were pitched by a good-looking individual who promised that just like them, you too could be successful.
That’s just not me.
Call me old school, call me a boring teacher, call me a terrible marketer. That probably all fits.
This course is not a magical silver bullet.
I don’t have “the one simple secret” that will solve all of life’s problems.
I just have my best attempt to present the latest retirement facts from a Canadian perspective, and a couple decades of helping readers and students understand their personal finances.
What I really want you to know is that I created this course in order to help people just like my own middle-class Canadian parents. I read dozens of books and hundreds of articles (including several from Boomer and Echo) in order to make sure my research was on point. I endured the humbling process of asking experts to give me feedback. And, at the end of the day, I know that this course can really, really help a lot of Canadians – but only if they find out about it first!
So I could really use your help.
I know that Boomer and Echo readers understand that there is a lot of money to be saved by withdrawing from their RRSP and TFSA in the right order once they hit retirement – but the average Canadian has no idea on this stuff.
Folks are busy, and it’s really hard to separate the slick marketing of bogus products from the resources and advice that will actually help them.
So I’m hoping you’ll let people know that the course exists and that I’m available to answer any questions.
A positive word from you to a friend would mean a lot to me. Your friend or family member is much more likely to listen to you than to a Facebook ad or even to the recommendation of a notable Canadian financial expert.
Thanks in advance for your time and consideration – and hopefully we’ll talk soon in my virtual classroom!
Kyle Prevost is a financial educator, author and speaker. He is also the creator of 4 Steps to a Worry-Free Retirement, Canada’s DIY retirement planning course.
Here is a comment I’m pretty sure Mr. Prevost did not expect to see, and wouldn’t be so happy to read (I’m quite sure he’d be glad there’s not too many people like me, among his prospect clients):
I’m almost 59.
Less than 2 years ago, I realized I have to seriously prepare for retirement.
So, what did I do? I did the REAL DIY thing:
I started reading a lot about CPP, OAS, GIS, ETFs, Dividend Income …
I then prepared a detailed budget for retirement.
And, when I say: detailed, I mean: detailed !
I looked at all of my expected costs while in retirement: my condo maintenance fees, utilities, property tax, grocery shopping, car insurance, car maintenance, fuel, haircuts (yes, I’ve factored that in as well), going out (for a coffee / restaurant), home internet service, cell phone bill, traveling, medical insurance, annual TFSA contributions, 10% emergency fund, YOU NAME IT …
Thus, I got a pretty good visibility on what all my expected expenses during retirement will be. I then was also able to work some what-if scenarios related to possible downsizing (selling my condo and moving to live in a small home, a transaction that can allow me pocketing the delta). I then calculated my expected income from all possible resources, took into account average growth of my money as well as expected inflation.
I did not need any professional to pay for doing my retirement financial plan and did not need to pay this or that course around this matter. I’ve managed to get a hold on some information on YouTube that would allow me to maximize the tax free GIS the government of Canada generously provides, starting at age 65, to people with low retirement income, and worked out my plan around the objective of maximizing this incredible benefit …
Therefore, I will stop working either at age 60 or 61, make sure I wind down all my RRSP before age 64, so I don’t need to convert it to RRIF later on and, in general, have a good control over line 23600 of my Canadian Personal Tax Return, so that I maximize my GIS income.
In summary, by self educating myself, for free, I’ve managed to have a very detailed knowledge of my expected retirement financial needs, then come out with a plan, with which I feel comfortable I can retire and have my modest, but fairly stable retirement going.
Well done, Dave! You’re probably among the top 10% of people with those amazing research, analytical, and mathematical skills.
However, the other 90% of people could probably use a course like Kyle’s. 🙂
Hi Dave, it sounds like you were successful in locking in a sensible plan for yourself. I would only point out that in working backwards to qualify for the GIS, you are fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it) to have a fairly simple financial situation. In your shoes, missing out on the GIS would have been a major opportunity lost, so glad that worked out. But for others, their situations may well be more complex, with homes, RRSPs, TFSAs, non registered savings, pensions, etc. It can get complicated really fast, and I don’t know too many people that have the skills or discipline to navigate all of this through self study.
No idea how good this course may or may not be, but I am pretty sure the average person can certainly benefit from learning everything they can about this important topic.
I agree with you, Matt, though I also have all those you’ve mentioned: a home, TFSA, non-registered investment account, RRSP (no pension:)
Hey Dave,
Good on you! That’s an impressive amount of research. Sounds like you have a very worry-free retirement ahead! Just to humour me, what is the dollar figure you’d put on an hour’s worth of your time? Folks who enjoy math, budgets, and details don’t come cheap these days! How much time did you spend tracking down and verifying all that research?
Also, I’m curious, in choosing to drain your RRSP before age 64, what sort of assumptions did you make about the tax-deferred growth you would have enjoyed between now and when you turn 71 and have to begin taking the cash out? (And then after 71, since presumably you wouldn’t have withdrawn it all at 71.)
Hope you’re enjoying the fruits of your labour man – kudos!
I’m not looking to make an hourly rate income these days on the side, as I have a good paying job.
The assumption I took when deciding to wind down my RRSP before age 64 was that if I don’t do so, and continue put money into my RRSP till age 71, then I would have to convert it all into an RRIF at age 72, and then would have to comply with the RRIF annual minimum withdrawal rules, which will be considered as income, thus clawing back my otherwise tax free GIS. My goal is to maximize my GIS, throughout my retirement years, and I therefore need to avoid almost every sort of income, because every dollar of income you have reduces your GIS eligibility. I recommend you to search YouTube for “5 strategies to maximize your GIS”. That is the series of videos I’ve followed to come up with my retirement financial plan.
No, you misunderstand my point Dave. I wanted to know what you value your time at, because that was the true economic cost of your research. So, it sounds like you’re worth quite a bit with the solid job and all. Maybe $50 per hour? More? At $50 per hour, if you measured how much time it took you to track down all the resources involved, I would imagine it’d add up pretty quickly.
I’m quite familiar with GIS strategies – in fact there is a full section in my course about them, along with a 40-minute interview that goes in-depth with various applications of a GIS strategy that maxes it out until age 71.
What my question was getting at, is what assumptions did you put into your calculations about how much money you could have made in your RRSP if you had let it grow until 71, and then began taking out the minimum RRIF? Sure, it would have been taxed at a relatively high rate (if we treat the GIS clawback like an increased tax rate) but you might have ended up with substantially more in the long run. There are a lot of variables in there, so I’m not saying your choice is incorrect at all, just wondering how you game planned it all out.
Hi Kyle,
With respect to the value of my time 🙂 it doesn’t really matter to me, since I like doing all those kind of research and plan things by myself, and I don’t mind the time it takes to then fine tuning and perfecting such a planning.
I did not game plan it all out, but rather simply followed my general preference of and assumption that receiving tax free GIS money from the government will be more beneficial to me than letting my money grow (hopefully, but no one can guarantee that) in RRSP till age 71 and then have it mandatory being withdrawn and prescribed annual percentages, and being taxed and clawedback the GIS.
Dave.
It really boils down to your risk tolerance and what you would have invested the money in Dave, but you might want to play with some numbers in regards to a historically average rate of return, and then compared that to what your effective tax rate would be when your RRIF kicked in. It’s likely that your RRSP would have close to doubled in the decade between 61 and 71 (using historical statistical averages for stocks and bonds). You could conceivably collect GIS until 71, so you could still get some of that guaranteed government cash before taking anything out.
Hey Dave,
What a great post,you just published.
I am old school as well and I would like to take into account every single detail before a retire. Just like you,when it comes to expenses I would like to know “beforehand “every expense I would incurr prior to pulling the trigger.
Wondering if you have a spreadsheet that you can share with me with of the expenses that you mentioned before.
Thanks.
Pablo
I do have such a spreadsheet, Pablo.
Please provide an email address, and I can send it to you.
Hey Dave.
That is fantastic!!
Here you go
pabloolmedo41@hotmail.com
Thanks a million!!
Pablo
Hello Dave,
I too would love to see your spreadsheet. Thank you for doing such amazing work!
lidia.le.francois@gmail.com
Thank you!
please share it with me too! katsjones@gmail.com
May I please have your spreadsheet too?
I too have spent many hours DIYing a retirement plan over the last few months but it still needs tweaking.
Congrats on your success and peace of mind!
Laura.livewireconsulting@gmail.com
Good morning Dave,
May I have a copy sent to del.12yrs@gmail.com
Much appreciated.
Have a great day!
Mary
Go to your email Pablo I will send you the spreadsheet this morning.
Dave.
My email is – pharris999@hotmail.com
Can you please also send me the spreadsheet. Thanks.
Hi Dave
May I have a peek at your spreadsheet as well please
janehladky@gmail.com
Thanks
Collecting GIS, studying on maximizing GIS and getting compliments about it, wow! Congratulations on playing the welfare for seniors game Dave.
I hope there’s no sarcasm between the lines in your above comment, Chris, but regardless, as one who has paid taxes for many years in this country, I don’t feel any shame of wanting to legally maximize what the government offers people during retirement.
Kyle, I’ve promoted your course on Mastodon. It looks like it would be very helpful.
Good luck with it!
Much appreciated Christina – thank you!
Hello Kyle. I am sure your course is really good and covers all things related retirement. In my case I am 66 and retired. What I have been searching for many years is an online retirement income planner that you can plug in your individual information and income streams and that can calculate taxes payable and net income till age 90-95. A platform where one can enter different rates of return on investments and inflation rate scenarios to have a good idea of future income. I think financial planners have access to this kind of software which individuals do not. I am willing to pay a subscription fee to have access to this kind of dynamic platform. There used to be an online financial/retirement planner from Moneypages that generated a detailed financial plan based on your input. I used it extensively for a few years but unfortunately it has been discontinued due to lack of support, I assume. Would like to know if there is a similar one available for Canadian residents? Thanks
Try PlanEasy
Dave did you use PlanEasy? I believe it does do all the things Najma is looking for? I too am looking for something that does the calculations although I really don’t want to pay for it. I guess the basic plan at $100 is a pretty good deal. Would love to hear your experience if you did use it?
Hello Jane,
I looked at PlanEasy, and even had a 30 free consultation with Owen, its developer, and had some back and forth emails exchange with him. But I did not use the tool eventually. I simply used excel to note down my planned retirement expenses and expected income, based on knowing my situation and reading a lot about the topic.
Being able to come up with a realistic and comprehensive, as detailed as possible list of monthly expenses, and planning the income required to cover for them (and then adjusting those expenses so that they are within your expected income) is practically the whole work.
If you expect to have a relatively low income while in retirement, then I recommend you to search for and watch the 5 YouTube videos “5 strategies for maximizing GIS”, by the same guy, Owen, who has developed PlanEasy.
Dave.
Adding to my previous reply, Jane:
My ultimate goal in doing my retirement financial planning was to make sure that, I will be able live within my means:
If, while planning, I realize that my expenses cannot be covered by my expected income, then I have to lower my expenses accordingly. Obviously, one needs to be self-disciplined to implement such a requirement.
Dave.
Thanks Dave. I have tracked our spending very closely over the last few years but things are not realistic as we are downsizing, having to spend to do repairs etc, we still have one kid at home, lots of different things going on so I think once things settle down , we sell our rental and then have a few even years we’ll be able to figure things out. I am not worried about having enough, we have plenty just wanting to optimize our withdrawals tax wise and get a fair amount out of our Rif and Lif before 71 , not certain we’ll be able to get GIS but if not just means we saved enough. Wish I’d been more astute earlier on to understand the implications of saving too much in rrsp’s but neither of us have pensions so it’s what we did.
Enjoy!
I applaud you for living within your means. It would be good if more people did that. However, I can’t imagine choosing to live on a lower amount than I have to just to qualify for GIS.
Hi Najma – I had the same question(s) and ran into this one just over a month ago. Very impressive overall so far: https://www.moneyreadyapp.ca/
Hi Najma,
Robb might have a better idea than me what the best software is for the average person to subscribe to. I see Plan Easy was referenced, I know a couple people that have used it to varying degrees of success. Fred Vettese has a solid calculator that he provides for free and encourages folks to re-submit details to yearly, so that they can get an updated figure.
Honestly, I’m clearly biased, but I don’t believe that any software does a very good job of showing the real-life journey of what retirement income is likely to look like. There are just too many variables that come into play and that need to be taken into consideration in order to optimize everything. Also, the data and projections those platforms present are only as good as the assumptions made within them. So whether you use the default settings or enter your own, it’s pretty tricky to project something 20+ years out without understanding all of the variables involved (and consequently, how to adapt to changes along the way).
Thanks for the comment!
I agree to an extent Kyle but I think what we siy’ers need is software to run our numbers annually so we can figure out how much to de accumulate in a tax efficient manner taking into consideration returns that year. At 60 I am not looking 20+ years down the line as I know I have enough $ just need to be tax wise.
For your interest, advice-only planner Jason Evans put together and rated a list of free retirement calculators: https://www.evansretirement.ca/blog/best-free-retirement-calculators-canada
Kyle also referenced Fred Vettese’s PERC tool, which has recently been revamped: https://www.perc-pro.ca/
I think this comment requires a bit of push-back.
Of course fintech software is incapable of taking into account all the twists of life over a decades long time span, but I don’t see an alternative to laying out the numbers as they currently exist with reasonable projections.
The maths can be irritatingly non-intuitive. I have no idea how any individual – financial planner or otherwise – would be able to suggest many courses of action that I would take seriously without quality simulation software.
This of course does not preclude integrating any number of contingencies in a plan that allow for the unforeseen.
With respect, I gotta push back on the push-back 😉
Financial software is a fine addition to understanding the fundamentals of financial planning – but it’s in no way a replacement, and it can actually be a detriment.
Let me give you an example. Every single one of the financial planning software tools out there shows investment returns as a linear equation. “You’ll hit 65 with this much, then we’ll draw down exactly this much per year, starting with your non-registered.”
If you don’t understand about sequence of returns risk, the neat linear path of that chart can actually hurt you, as it doesn’t illustrate reality. This can cause you to make non-optimized assumptions.
That chart doesn’t explain any trade offs about annuitizing part of your nest egg.
It doesn’t give you any background on what the statistics are concerning long-term health needs in Canada or the spending patterns of most retirees over the course their golden years.
It doesn’t give you any information on perhaps retiring abroad.
It doesn’t really help you decide whether to defer your OAS/CPP (although it can help more on this one with various scenario modeling).
It doesn’t help you decide what types of insurance you actually need.
It can tell you what the cash flow from a reverse mortgage would look like, but it doesn’t help you understand all of the tradeoffs when it comes to various home equity choices.
So it’s useful as a quick glance at various scenarios, but without the ability to understand and adapt, it really can give a false sense of confidence.
All your points are fair and I suspect we are in broad agreement.
I don’t think I would ever suggest that fintech would be a substitute for understanding many of the nuances involved in financial planning.
As a computer scientist, I could not imagine plowing through innumerable “what-if” scenarios without fintech. You might also be surprised by what is on the horizon. 🙂
There’s a reason it’s in every financial planner’s toolbox. Your list above is the reason good financial planners and education are still required.
Fair enough A1 – I hear you on being a valuable tool in the toolbox. I’d go so far as to say that current AI – with the right prompts – and some solid software, will definitely give you better advice than a bad/poorly incentivized financial advisor/salesperson will!
Hi Najma,
I have been using a Canadian DIY financial planning tool for several years now called the MoneyReady app. It is excellent and is continuously being enhanced with new features and functionality. It is made by a Canadian for Canadians.
Is there a course more targeted to retirees. I am retired, converted my RRSP and LIRA, have no morgage. This course would be great if I was getting ready to retire but now a lot of the topics are behind me. Thanks
Hey Nancy,
What would you like to learn about specifically?
I’ve got information on tax considerations for 65+, insurance conundrums, how to manage home equity, the benefits of preparing a will, and (blatantly borrowed with attribution to one Mr. Engen) creating a “Just In Case” plan. I did some pretty thorough research on cash needed for various types of assisted living as well.
Hi Kyle, I have a great deal of interests in tax and health care planning in retirement, but am mostly on managing retirement after a spouse’s death. I am sure others will be in this boat too.
Yup, there are several chapters in the course covering those topics Nancy. Unfortunately, a lot of the tax-saving opportunities in retirement do involve various types of income splitting between partners – but obviously not all of them. Anyway, just wanted to point out that there is still quite a bit in the course for folks who are already retired. The healthcare planning section was a really interesting one to do the research for, as there is a lot of misinformation out there (mostly put out by insurance comapnies) when it comes to what the “average” and “worst case” scenarios are when it comes to Canadian retirees.
To Everyone,
Someone has mentioned here the following Personal Finance Planning Tool:
https://www.moneyreadyapp.ca/
I’ve looked into it and started working it, and so far it seems a decent tool.
I recommend everyone here to check it out.
Dave.