How long will your money last in retirement?
Run it through every market Canada has on record.
Save twenty-five times what you spend; withdraw four percent a year. The rules of thumb are tidy, and they come from American data, decades old, that never met CPP, OAS, or a Canadian tax return. The more useful answer is messier, and it turns mostly on one thing you control: how much you spend each year. Retirement Replay takes that spending through every market Canada has on record, one start year at a time, and counts how many of those retirements still had money at the end.
It depends on your spending rate
There is no single number that fits everyone, and anyone who hands you one without asking about your accounts and your province is guessing. What the history does give you is a ceiling: the highest steady spending that survived every start year on record, the gentle markets and the brutal ones alike.
For a single retiree in Ontario with a balanced portfolio, full OAS, and an average CPP cheque, that ceiling looks like this. The figures below count total after-tax spending, the lifestyle you fund each year, with CPP and OAS already doing part of the work.
$500,000 portfolio
$38,750/yr
spending that lasted through every retirement since 1956
$1,000,000 portfolio
$55,000/yr
spending that lasted through every retirement since 1956
What $500,000 did
Each bar is a year you could have retired since 1956, spending $50,000 a year. Taller bars lasted longer; the red ones ran out before 100. The shortest bars, the retirements that ran dry earliest, fall in the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, when a weak opening decade did the most damage.
At $40,000 a year, the money lasted in 66 of 69 retirements: CPP and OAS cover much of that budget, so the portfolio barely has to stretch. Lift spending to $50,000 and it holds in 45 of 69.
At $55,000 the count is 25 of 69, and among the retirements that ran out, the money was typically gone by 82. Push to $60,000 and only 17 of 69 hold; none of the 35 retirements old enough to have run the full course to 100 made it.
Tap any row to replay that exact setup in the simulator.
What a second $500,000 buys
Double the portfolio and the safe ceiling rises from $38,750 to $55,000 a year, a real increase and a far smaller jump than the portfolio's own. CPP and OAS sit under both portfolios as the same fixed floor, so the second $500,000 only tops up spending above what the first already covered.
At $60,000 a year the money lasted in 60 of 69 retirements; at $80,000 it holds in 39 of 69; at $100,000 the count falls to 14 of 69.
Three things decide it
Your spending rate
The lever you control, and the one that moves the answer most. The gap between a retirement that always lasts and one that usually fails is often ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year of spending on the same savings.
Your holdings and the market
Two retirements with the same plan can end decades apart, depending on the markets they meet in the first years and how much they hold in stocks. A heavier stock mix grows more over a long retirement but swings harder through a weak opening decade like the 1970s.
How long you live
A plan that lasts to 90 can still run dry by 100. Replay carries Canadian mortality, so it shows the odds you are even around to see the money run out.
The order those returns arrive in has a name, sequence-of-returns risk, and it is why two people with identical savings can retire five years apart and see the money last years longer for one than the other. The simulator lets you watch a single history play out year by year.
CPP and OAS change the math
The four percent rule was built on US market history and a thirty-year retirement, and it measures a percentage of the portfolio withdrawn each year, before tax, with no government pension in the picture.
A Canadian retirement works differently. CPP and OAS arrive every month for life, indexed to inflation, and they cover a real share of an ordinary budget. That is why a $500,000 portfolio here can support $38,750 a year of spending through every market on record: the portfolio is only topping up a guaranteed base. The simulator counts that base, the tax on registered withdrawals, and RRIF minimums, because all three change the arithmetic.
Read exactly how the numbers are built on the methodology page, or see how this fits with projecting what you will have saved by 65 in the Retirement Calculator.
An average CPP cheque and full OAS at 65, indexed for life. Your portfolio only has to fund spending above this base.
The count for your own situation
These figures are one balanced portfolio in Ontario. Your accounts, your province, your CPP and OAS timing, and how you invest all move the answer. Retirement Replay computes it live for your exact setup, as the highest spending that lasted through every start year on record, and lets you replay any single history.
Questions people ask
Is the four percent rule right for Canada?
It is a useful starting point with American roots. It came from US market history and a thirty-year horizon, measures a pre-tax withdrawal from the portfolio alone, and leaves out CPP and OAS. In Canada those benefits cover part of the budget, so the spending a portfolio can sustain is usually higher than four percent of it, and the right number depends on your accounts and province.
How long will $500,000 last in retirement?
It depends almost entirely on what you spend. For a single retiree in Ontario with full OAS and an average CPP, $500,000 supported $40,000 a year of total spending in 66 of 69 retirements since 1956. At $55,000 a year it lasted in 25 of 69; at $60,000 the money ran out in nearly all of them.
Do CPP and OAS change the answer that much?
Yes. They are inflation-indexed income for life, so they act as a floor under your spending that a portfolio alone does not have. That floor is why doubling a portfolio from $500,000 to $1,000,000 lifts safe spending from $38,750 to $55,000 a year, a far smaller jump than the portfolio's own.
What if I retire right before a crash?
That is the risk that matters most, and it is why the same plan can last in one year and fail a year later. The simulator runs your plan against every historical start year, including the worst ones, so the count you see already has the crashes in it. You can replay a single bad start, like the mid-1970s, and watch it month by month.
More retirement guides in the Guides hub.