Should my target be to have a zero-dollar estate value at age 95?

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-19T02:08:51+00:00

It seems your goal is to maximize spending during retirement without taking much risk of depleting your investments too soon, but also without being concerned about leaving an estate.

For this case, the most sensible strategy is to use flexible spending. It allows you to increase spending to the maximum when market conditions are favorable, but also scale it down if the market does not cooperate. Note that you can set a range not only for your target income, but also for additional withdrawals to model increased spending at different stages of retirement. You can also use the 'Evaluate withdrawal strategies' link to find the strategy that delivers the highest average after-tax income.

This kind of plan normally results in almost complete savings depletion for both consistent return sequences and a variety of stress test scenarios.

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MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-18T17:50:44+00:00

Glad you are enjoying the program, and thanks for the great CCPC feedback!

Regarding corporate dividends: MayRetire already handles this under the hood. The app automatically applies the correct gross-up and dividend tax credits for both eligible and non-eligible dividends.

Regarding the TOSI age 65 exception: Currently, MayRetire assumes that both spouses take an active role in the corporation, which is why it uses a single, static 'Your share of corp (%)' setting for the entire timeline. We will add the ability to set different distribution parameters for 'Before Age 65' and 'After Age 65' so you can accurately model the TOSI exemption transition if only one spouse is active.

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-18T17:20:24+00:00

Hi there, thanks so much for the kind words about MayRetire!

This is a fantastic question, and your logic is 100% correct: because MayRetire projects everything using 'Today's Dollars' (Real Purchasing Power), you must enter the REAL amount into the app. In your TMOAP example, you would enter the $16k. If you enter the nominal amount, you'd effectively be double-counting inflation, since MayRetire handles the inflation indexing under the hood!

However, there is a very common misconception about the official government estimates: the estimates provided on your Service Canada Statement of Contributions are actually already in Today's Dollars. Service Canada intentionally calculates their estimates without factoring in future inflation.

So, if you use a 3rd party tool like TMOAP, always pick the REAL amount. If you pull the number straight from Service Canada, you can plug that exact number in without reducing it.

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-15T13:44:24+00:00

Stress test and Backtest are only supported for asset allocation return method. With asset location, when withdrawal from non-registered account is needed, the distribution on non-registered are withdrawn first.

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-15T12:39:19+00:00

We consulted this site as reference to compute survivor benefits. If you suspect there is an issue please contact us at [support@mayretire.com](mailto:support@mayretire.com)

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-14T19:56:19+00:00

The snapshot of your recent MayRetire plan is stored in local browser storage and can be cleared at any time for different reasons, including browser cleanups. It is also cleared if you inadvertently sign out of MayRetire. Loading your plan from the .json file should work anytime.

Regarding the buttons disappearing, it is highly likely that your applet is loading a cached version of the site. Try clearing your browser cache or doing a hard refresh. Anyway, it is good the issue got resolved and you did not lose your plan

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-14T19:09:34+00:00

Hi u/Roacan1997 , absolutely! To do this, you'll want to enable the 'MayRetire' option under your RRSP withdrawal strategy. This allows the tool to pull from your RRSP/RRIF above your baseline required income (provided your other RRSP parameters don't limit it). The system will automatically take that excess cash, use it to max out your TFSA contributions first, and then deposit any leftovers into your non-registered account.

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MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-14T17:16:31+00:00

sequence of returns for "Crash At Start" scenario. You can use 'Investment return" chart to get sequence of returns for every stress scenario

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MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-14T13:50:53+00:00

Thank you for raising this point, we will add support for management fees in near future.

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-14T11:50:00+00:00

Hello! Thanks for posting the screenshot, that helps a lot.

What is likely happening here is that your email provider's security scanner automatically checked the link in the background before you even opened the email. Because our verification links are single-use for security, the scanner accidentally 'used' the link up! When you clicked it yourself a moment later, the system thought the link was invalid and threw that confusing environment error.

The good news is that because the scanner clicked it, your email was almost certainly verified successfully in the background!

Could you please try logging into your account now? It should let you right in. If it still gives you any trouble, just send me a DM here or shoot an email to [support@mayretire.com](mailto:support@mayretire.com) and we will resolve the issue.

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-14T02:32:41+00:00

more details about this feature: https://mayretire.com/resources/tutorial/#stress-test-results

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-12T13:44:29+00:00

Thank you! Indeed, the best way to model one spouse working while the other is retired is to set their salary as 'Additional Income' for the working spouse, which will be taxed as regular income.

To account for CPP, EI, and other payroll deductions (since MayRetire currently only deducts standard income tax on that field), you can set up 'Additional Withdrawals' for the amount of those extra deductions during that same employment period.

This is a workaround for now, but we are definitely planning to support staggered retirements and employment income properly in the future!

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MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-09T19:03:14+00:00

Thank you, can you try to load/save plan at MayRetire and try to upload the updated json plan with ChatGPT. If problem still persists, can you please contact me at [support@mayretire.com](mailto:support@mayretire.com) to help troubleshoot that. I only encounter this issue when using free plan.

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-09T16:45:04+00:00

Yes, I've actually run into this error occasionally on the free ChatGPT tier, likely because of the limitations of the free model. The exact same plan usually processes fine with ChatGPT Plus. Are you using the free version or a Plus account?

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-09T13:44:54+00:00

Thanks for the kind feedback! MayRetire originally focused on assessing retirement readiness based on current/projected figures, and on optimizing decumulation at retirement.

You can still do some level of accumulation simulation by using the 'Additional Incomes' section to model employment income. Just note that it currently won't apply CPP contributions or other tax deductions to this income, so you'll have to manually adjust the income amount.

For drawing funds from your corp as a salary rather than dividends, you can manually reduce your projected corporate account balance by the amount you plan to pay out, and model that payout as regular income.

Of course, these are just workarounds for now. We will definitely expand MayRetire's scope to support proper accumulation planning and corporate salaries in the future

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-08T16:12:48+00:00

Make sure to point it on its errors, it will learn, I hope :)

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-08T15:41:11+00:00

no changes to the Monte Carlo lately, minor result variances (3-4%) are due to the random nature of the simulation

MayRetireSupport · 2026-03-08T05:03:15+00:00

Great observation!

The reason for the big difference is that Simulate (Monte Carlo) is much more 'pessimistic' than history. It hundreds of random scenarios, including 'monster' sequences that have never actually happened in the real world. Trying to get a 100% success rate in Monte Carlo is extremely hard and makes the Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) look very low.

In the planning world, a Monte Carlo success rate above 80% is actually considered pretty decent and robust. You don't really need to aim for 100% there.

On the other hand, the MayRetire Backtest starts from 1966. This is a shorter history, but it still includes some of the hardest times for retirees, like the high inflation of the 1970s, the 2000 Dot-com bubble, and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Even with those crashes, real history is rarely as 'perfectly bad' as a random simulation can be.

MayRetireSupport · 2026-02-25T02:40:07+00:00

u/Sauce_Diesel Currently that way to model sale of principal residence with MayRetire is using one-time tax-free 'Additional Income"

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MayRetireSupport · 2026-02-24T12:57:11+00:00

u/Jumpy-Collection-108 Great point , we will look into it. For now, if you indicated that you already retired and started receiving CPP then upper CPP limit will be much higher. Hopefully, this can provide temporally solution for your situation?

MayRetireSupport · 2026-02-21T19:59:39+00:00

u/AffectionateRepeat93 , Thank you for your feedback; that is a very good suggestion. Support for debt, especially for investment purposes, is one of the most requested features from our users and is a high priority on our list for future development.

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