Live projectionFour drawdown ordersOntario rates current

The order you spend
things in is the plan.

Accumulation is the easy half. RRSP withdrawals, the forced RRIF minimum, CPP and OAS timing and the recovery tax all interact — and getting the order wrong is expensive in a way no single calculator shows you.

Lifetime tax
$816,183
RRSP first order, to age 95
OAS clawed back
$77,693
in 15 years
Estate at 95
$0
after $0 tax on the final RRIF
Money runs out
Age 92
spending target unmet after this
Portfolio $1.5M
RRSP / RRIFTFSANon-registered
0$440k$880k$1.3M$1.8M65707580859095
Balances by age, in nominal dollars. Hover for a breakdown.

Which account to spend first

Worth $419,909

Ranked on spending funded first, tax second — a plan that empties early pays less tax only because it stopped spending. Tax-smoothed takes RRSP income up to $93,454 of taxable income a year, tops up from the TFSA because that adds nothing taxable, and reinvests what it does not need, so the forced RRIF minimum never carries you over the Old Age Security threshold.

The rate you can't see on a tax table

At age 72
60.0%
effective marginal rate
Income of $150,599 sits inside the OAS recovery band. The statutory rate is 45.0%, but every extra dollar also costs 15 cents of Old Age Security. This is the single most expensive thing most Canadian retirees are never told.

Where you are

What you have

Assumptions

Government benefits