Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Start RRIF Withdrawals at Age 62


Question:


I changed my plan to retire later when I'll be 62 years old. Now it's showing a RRIF withdrawal from age 62. I thought this was illegal - I don't even have a RRIF. Please can you tell me how to sort this out? Previously it was showing withdrawals first from non-reg funds.

I've already set the option under Source of Income under Registered to start withdrawals as late as possible to save on taxes.

Answer:


You can open a RRIF at any age. Check on the Options page to ensure that you selected to start RRIF withdrawals as late as possible. It's on the first tab.

On the Financial Information page on the Registered tab, you have selected purchasing an annuity from a life insurance company under RRSP Options. Is this your intent? If so, the RRSP balance is used to purchase a lifetime income. So it will not work to defer the RRSP. You'd have to change it back to RRIF and it should then only be accessed when you're 71.

Friday, May 25, 2018

How to Determine Required Savings


Questions:

I purchased RetireWare to derive an accurate number for annual savings for my wife and I given a set of retirement goals and lifestyle requirements.

I have an account set up under the email above but feel that something isn't quite right with the calculations after playing around with the numbers.

Here are my questions:

1. My wife is currently not working as our kids are young. She plans on starting to earn income again next fall. That income will likely increase again once our 2yr old son goes to school full time in 3 more years. I can't seem to figure out a way to incorporate that graduated income for my wife into the calculations. Can I do that in RetireWare?

2. Our plan was to have an "active" retirement until I hit 75 and my wife hits 65 (ie. 15yrs into our retirement as currently planned in RetireWare) and then switch to a less active retirement. How do I account for a graduated level of retirement expense in RetireWare?

3. It seems that the "Principal Residence" under Financial Information is being double counted for my wife and I. I entered the "Current Market Value" of our house under my wife's profile *and* my profile. Should I be entering it once to avoid double counting it?

Answers:

1. You could add the income under 'Other Income' and can enter up to four periods, but this type is for after retirement and does not allow for saving for retirement. Instead you can enter the average income she'll earn between now and retirement, considering $0 for a coupe of years, a part-time wage after and full-time when the kids are in school full-time.

2. On the Forecast page under 'Retirement income target', there is a section called 'Advanced'. There you can apply reductions or increases to your retirement icnome goal for up to three periods during retirement.

3. Yes you should enter under one spouse or enter 50% of the value under both.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018


Question:

When completing annual updates and considering inflation, is it necessary to increase the income objective, CPP and indexed pensions to the current payment amount?

Considering a joint retirement plan with different time horizons, how are the assets of the person with the shorter time horizon treated?  Are they treated as a spousal roll over or deemed disposed of?

I notice that TFSA assets appear to be disposed of. Is there a way to have them transfer to the survivor?

Answer:

Assets are rolled over to the spouse if the plan combines the financial information of spouses. If there's life insurance, you can direct it either to the spouse or a beneficiary on the Financial Information page.

First update the date of financial information on the Forecast page. If the income objective is in terms of a dollar amount, the program will project it from the date of financial information to the retirement year, so there's no need to update it.

For the CPP, if you entered a monthly amount, and indexed pensions, you should update it to the current amounts.

Monday, May 21, 2018

Determining Optimal Savings


Question:

I modified our "Annual Amount Saved" until the combined (ie. me and my wife) Summary said that our assets will be sufficient. Then I changed our retirement ages to 65/55 and played with the "Annual Amount Saved" again until I saw that our assets are sufficient. Is this a good way to figure out how to make the retirement plan work?

Answer:

Yes, you go to the Forecast page and on the Savings tab to increase your annual savings. Then switch to your wife's view and increase her savings. Click the Refresh button on the View menu to see your revised results.

Even with higher savings, you may need to reduce your budget slightly or plan to retire later (even one year may make a good difference). But first try to save more and it should take you close to having enough funds for retirement.

if you achieve better than expected returns you can then periodically revise your plan as you get closer to retirement and have greater clarity on the feasibility of retiring at age 60.

Be sure to verify that you are not hitting the maximum contribution limit in 'Savings Plan' on the Forecast page. For example, if it's set at 30% of income and you earn $80,000 per year, the program will try to find the required savings, but only up to $24,000. You can this this maximum up to 100% of income. But as I recall, you are in a higher salary range, so what you are stating is correct.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Quick vs. Detailed Plan


Questions:

In the Quick plan:

1) is the Retirement Income Target gross or net?

2) I don't see where I can input existing locked-in money. Can I?

In the Detailed plan:

1) in the Forecast/Economic Outlook/Advanced/Annual Investment Management Fees, how can I bypass the fees?  Do I need to put them all to 0? It's because the planning I do is based on returns net of fees.

2) in the Pensions/DC/Group RRSP the Asset Allocation defaults to 100% cash, but If I choose a Profile in the Options tab will it over-ride this default?

3) in the Risk Analysis/Estate Objective, there is an amount of $50,000 as a default.  Is this automatically included in the calculations, so do I need to change it to $0, or under what circumstances is it included in the calculations?

Answers:

Quick:

1. It is Gross.

2. You can only do this on the Detailed user interface.

Detailed:

1. Yes, put them at 0%, otherwise they will reduce the gross returns.

2. Yes, the profile option applies to all types of funds.

3. It applies the risk scenarios and looks if there will be $50,000 or more for the estate. The ratio of successful scenarios over all scenarios is the success rate for the estate objectives. If you put $0, then all will be successful.

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