Retirement Planning 101: Getting Started

Planning for retirement can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s a simple way to get started.

Start with Your Goals

Before diving into numbers, think about what you want your retirement to look like. Consider:

• Where do you want to live?
• What activities do you want to pursue?
• How much travel do you plan to do?

Your target spending — roughly what you want to spend each year in retirement — is the single most important input. Everything else follows from it.

Understand Your Income Sources

Most Canadians retire on a mix of income sources:

1. Government benefits — CPP and OAS, each of which you can choose to start earlier or later
2. Employer pensions — defined benefit or defined contribution plans, if you have one
3. Personal savings — RRSPs, TFSAs, and non-registered accounts

Think About Drawdown, Not Just Saving

Saving is only half the picture. How you draw money down in retirement affects how much tax you pay and how long your savings last. The order you tap your accounts, when you start CPP and OAS, and how a couple splits income can all make a meaningful difference.

There’s no single right answer — it depends on your accounts and your goals. Slackwater gives you a few clear strategy templates to compare, from steady withdrawals to approaches that draw taxable accounts first or last, or that smooth your taxable income over time.

Build Your Plan

With Slackwater, you can bring these elements together into one plan and see your earliest retirement date and the year-by-year picture behind it. As you update your balances over time, the projection stays current.

Get started today at slackwater.ca.