MayRetire.com was born out of a personal need for a flexible, powerful retirement calculator. When the creators, Canadians nearing retirement, found that existing tools didn’t offer the adaptability required for accurate financial planning, ...

The MayRetire plugin has passed OpenAI’s review and is now published in the ChatGPT plugin directory. You can install it here: chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_a…

Unified metrics across the Explore screens Both Explore tools, Withdrawal Strategies and Benefits Timing, now share the same set of comparison metrics, laid out the same way. Learn one, and the other reads the same. The metrics come in two choices you combine. First, what to measure: Net Estate, if meeting your spending and leaving more to heirs is the priority, or Lifetime Value, if income received and donations made during life matter alongside the inheritance. Second, how to weigh it over time: Plan End, which compares outcomes at the end of your planning horizon, or Age-Weighted, which factors in that passing could come earlier. Why not just one number? Because “best” depends on what you’re optimizing for. The same strategy can look different through each lens. Two plans with similar final estates can hide real differences in income and giving along the way. Pairing the two choices lets you compare on the terms that match your goals. Same metrics, same place, on both screens.

New in MayRetire: Explore Withdrawal Strategies Picking a withdrawal strategy usually means setting your RRSP drawdown and tax limits, running the plan, adjusting, and running again. It works, but it’s a lot of trial and error to find what’s actually best for you. This new feature does the searching for you. It runs your plan across a whole grid of withdrawal rates and tax-rate limits at once, and shows how each combination compares to your current strategy. Each cell shows the change versus what you have now, so you can see at a glance where the better options are. You can also narrow the ranges, choose which strategy options to test, and compare any combinations side by side. You can rank the results by what matters to you: total lifetime value, after-tax estate, or the age-weighted versions. Find a combination you like, and apply it to your plan in one click. It’s free to try in preview for now, and will become a Plus feature later. Have a look and let us know what you think.

New in MayRetire: Age-Weighted Net Estate Most retirement tools show your projected estate year by year, or as one amount at the end of the plan, often at 90 or 95. That tells you what your estate would be at each age. It doesn’t tell you how likely you are to pass at each of those ages. Age-Weighted Net Estate combines those yearly amounts into one figure, weighted by how likely you are to pass in each year. Ages you’re more likely to reach count for more, and ages you’re unlikely to reach count for less. For couples, it’s based on the second death. It sits alongside the end-of-plan estate, not instead of it. Two numbers, a fuller picture.

New in MayRetire: model multiple accounts of the same type MayRetire's Investment Portfolios just got more powerful. You can now model multiple portfolios of the same account type: TFSA, RRSP, RRIF, LIRA, LIF, and non-registered, for each person, without lumping separate accounts into one balance. Each Investment Portfolio is a flexible building block: use one per account, split a single account into separate portfolios with different asset allocations, or model several accounts of the same type. Give each its own allocation, or custom return, yield, and volatility assumptions. Set a conversion age for each RRSP, or let MayRetire optimize the conversion dynamically. Choose when each LIRA transitions, and assign each LIRA or LIF its own federal or provincial jurisdiction, even if it differs from where you live. More accurate modeling, for the way your investments really are.

New in MayRetire: the option to tailor your withdrawal strategy to each phase of retirement Retirement isn't one long uniform phase. The early "go-go" years, the later years, and a possible survivor period can each call for a different drawdown approach. MayRetire already lets you fine-tune individual withdrawals with Overrides, but the underlying strategy still applied across the whole plan. You can now split your plan into consecutive year-ranges and set a separate strategy for each, with different RRSP/RRIF and TFSA handling per phase. Then see how each affects income, taxes, and estate outcomes. A quick note: for most plans, a single well-configured strategy already produces excellent results, thanks to how flexible the existing settings are. But for some, tailoring the strategy to different stages can meaningfully improve the outcome. TThe best way to find out is to try varying the strategy across periods and compare against your single-strategy plan

Happy Labour Day! In a fitting coincidence for Labour Day, we’re glad to announce that MayRetire now supports employment and self-employment income. MayRetire can now account for payroll contributions, earned-income deductions and tax credits, track changes to your RRSP contribution room, and model workplace retirement plans. This feature is available to all MayRetire users, including MayRetire Free. For more accurate projections during your working years, simply change the applicable income source’s Income Type to Employment or Self-Employment. Please note: No action is required to maintain your current projections. Existing plans will continue to work as before. This is a significant update, so please let us know if you notice any issues or unexpected results.

Just in case you were considering a MayRetire Plus subscription and haven't purchased it yet: the first-year intro price for MayRetire Plus is available through August 31st, then moves to the standard rate. And a big thank-you to everyone who's already subscribed - your support means a lot!

New in MayRetire: explore your CPP/QPP and OAS timing When to start CPP/QPP and OAS is an important part of every retirement plan. We’ve added a Benefits Timing view that lays out the available combinations side by side, so you can see the tradeoffs at a glance. Each cell shows how a timing combination compares with your current plan, with its total lifetime value (cumulative after-tax retirement income plus ending after-tax estate, in today’s dollars) shown underneath. Your current timing is the $0 cell, marked with a dashed border (unless it is also the best result). Every other cell shows the gain or loss relative to what you have configured now. With one different combination selected, you can apply it directly to your plan. Or select up to eight combinations to compare in detail before deciding. Results depend on your planning horizon, current withdrawal strategy, and other plan settings. Those settings may not be optimal for every timing combination, so this is a tool for exploring tradeoffs, not finding a single “right answer.” You’ll find Explore Benefits Timing at the bottom of the Government Benefits panel. Have a look and let us know what you think.

You can now set ownership for each rental property: joint, owned by you, or owned by your spouse. Previously, MayRetire assumed rental properties were jointly owned. With this update, rental income, expenses, mortgage interest, sale proceeds, and related tax impacts can be attributed more accurately in couple plans. This improvement was added based on user feedback.

A small but meaningful update to MayRetire’s investment portfolio modelling 📊 The distribution tax breakdown now includes Return of Capital (ROC) and non-eligible dividends. ROC is generally not taxable when received. Instead, it reduces the portfolio’s adjusted cost base; once the ACB reaches zero, additional ROC becomes a capital gain. We’ve also added annual portfolio turnover to help model activity such as rebalancing, tax-gain or loss harvesting, and other portfolio adjustments. The selected portion is treated as sold and reinvested, realizing its share of the embedded capital gain or loss without generating spendable cash. These additions should make taxable portfolio projections more representative of real-world investing.

Optional Plan Workspace added to MayRetire We’ve added an optional Plan Workspace for people who like exploring multiple versions of a retirement plan. It lets you: - Keep up to eight plan variants together - See their key projected outcomes at a glance - Switch between saved variants - Add the current plan or import an existing plan file - Compare variants of your plan with a Plus subscription This is an optional layer, not a change to the existing workflow. If you prefer working with one plan version at a time, MayRetire continues to work exactly as before, and the Workspace remains hidden. No action is required. If the Workspace sounds useful, give it a try whenever it’s convenient for you. More details: mayretire.com/resources/tuto…

New in MayRetire: Management Fee Support Model MERs, management fees, and advisor fees directly in your retirement projection. MERs can be entered when they aren’t already reflected in expected returns, while eligible separately billed fees for non-registered accounts can include a tax-deductible portion. Account-level fees are available in MayRetire Free. MayRetire Plus adds separate percentage or fixed fees for each Investment Portfolio.

Minor MayRetire Improvement: Non-registered accounts now use ACB MayRetire now uses Adjusted Cost Base (ACB) for regular non-registered accounts instead of asking for the initial capital gain/loss percentage. This improvement was made based on user feedback and makes the regular non-registered account consistent with corporate accounts and investment portfolios. No action is required for existing plans. If your plan previously used the capital gain/loss percentage field, MayRetire will automatically convert it to the equivalent ACB after the upgrade. This should make the input easier to verify against brokerage and tax records.

MayRetire now lets you set Additional Withdrawals as recurring items. This is useful for planning larger occasional expenses, such as: - car upgrades every few years - major travel - home renovations - family gifts - other periodic spending goals Instead of creating multiple one-time withdrawals manually, you can now set a withdrawal period and choose a frequency like “Every 2 years,” “Every 5 years,” or “Every 7 years.” Example: a $40,000 car upgrade starting in year 3, repeating every 7 years for 25 years. This feature is included in MayRetire Free.

New in MayRetire: Withdrawal Overrides This is a substantial new planning feature that lets you override the automatic withdrawal strategy for selected accounts and retirement years. Overrides can help you model personal preferences such as withdrawing round amounts from your RRSP for certain years or fund a major purchase from a chosen account, such as a TFSA. Use the visual timeline to review overrides, click to add or edit one, or drag across years to create a range. Because this feature affects core retirement calculations and supports many combinations, please report any unexpected results or usability issues you encounter. Your feedback is appreciated!

MayRetire update: more corporate account detail is now available in the Detailed Annual Retirement Financial Projections table. For plans with a corporate investment account, the Corporate Account section now includes: * Funds Sold * Tax Paid * Dividend Refund These columns make it easier to understand what is happening inside the corporation each year, not just the ending balance and notional account balances. As usual, the table can be viewed in today’s dollars or future dollars, and exported to Excel or JSON.

New MayRetire update: the Annual Tax Report can now be exported to Excel, and this feature is included in MayRetire Free. You can choose Today’s dollars or Future dollars, and export the report in Compact, Standard, or Detailed view. The Excel file keeps the tax report layout, with year and spouse columns, frozen headers, and numeric values ready for further review or sharing. This should make it easier to review projected taxable income, credits, deductions, OAS clawback, and total tax year by year.

An update on the future of MayRetire 🍁 MayRetire began as a small retirement-planning project. It grew into something used by thousands of Canadians who want to understand and take charge of their own retirement - shaped by this community's feedback every step of the way. That growth is why we're writing today. Keeping MayRetire accurate and dependable takes real, ongoing work - maintaining tax rules, projection assumptions, and historical data, running support, and building the long list of features still ahead. To keep it going for the long term, MayRetire needs to be sustainable. So starting August 1st, MayRetire is moving to a Free + MayRetire Plus model. What stays free - and it's a lot: CPP/OAS/GIS, RRSP/RRIF, TFSA, LIRA/LIF and non-registered accounts, advanced withdrawal strategies, tax and contribution planning, survivor planning, and detailed reports and exports. For many typical Canadian retirement plans, the free version is all you'll ever need. And your plans stay yours - saved on your own device, never locked to our servers. What moves to Plus: The more advanced planning tools, including Monte Carlo simulation, stress testing and backtesting, plan comparison, suggested adjustments, and RRSP withdrawal-strategy evaluation — plus complex modeling like corporate accounts, rental properties, debts, investment portfolios, defined-benefit pensions, additional incomes, principal residence, whole life insurance, and more. The rollout: Now → Aug 1: nothing changes yet — time to explore Plus and decide. Aug 1: Plus features begin requiring a subscription. Free continues as above. Intro pricing: Plus is $79/year. You can subscribe today to lock in the intro rate — $49 for your first year (renews at $79/year) — available through Aug 31. MayRetire is intended for personal and household planning, and it remains the same transparent, local-first tool it's always been — you can always see how every number is calculated, and your data stays with you. Thank you for being part of this. Introducing Plus is what lets MayRetire keep going and keep getting better for the long haul. Questions? Reach us anytime at support@mayretire.com