DIY retirement planning Canada-wide is the same basic puzzle…

but the pieces look different for everyone.

One of the questions I hear most often in first conversations with prospective clients is some version of this:

“We’ve been saving for years, but we honestly have no idea if we’re on track. How do we know when we can retire?”

That question deserves a real answer, not a vague reassurance or a number pulled from a generic calculator. If you manage your own investments and you’re trying to figure out whether retirement is getting close, I hope this post will give you a clear, practical way to find out.

Chances are, you probably already have most of what you need. You just need a framework to put it together.

Why This Question Feels Harder Than It Should

Most DIY investors are doing a pretty good job saving and investing.  This is what’s known as the accumulation phase. They contribute regularly, they hold low-cost index funds, they don’t panic-sell when markets drop. What they’re missing isn’t discipline.  It’s a clear picture of where they stand with respect to their goals.

That gap between saving well and knowing where you stand comes down understanding a few things:

• Retirement income is a puzzle with a lot of pieces: CPP, OAS, RRSPs, TFSAs, pensions, non-registered accounts, maybe a corporation.
• How to put the pieces together during the accumulation phase
• How to take the pieces apart during the spending or decumulation phase to minimize taxes over time.
• The timing of things like CPP and OAS can make a significant difference. Like “tens of thousands of dollars” difference.
• Life doesn’t sit still, so the plan needs some flexibility built in.

None of that is your fault for not knowing. It’s a lot to coordinate on your own.

Step 1: Start With What You Actually Spend

Before you can answer “are we on track,” you need to know what you’re on track toward. That means understanding your current spending and what you expect to spend in retirement.

This doesn’t have to be a detailed line-by-line budget. A rough monthly picture is enough to start:

• What do you spend on housing, food, transportation, and utilities?
• What do you spend on lifestyle: travel, hobbies, dining out, giving?
• What expenses will go away in retirement (a mortgage, maybe, or commuting costs)?
• What new expenses might show up (bigger travel goals, more leisure, gifting to family, potentially health costs later)?

One honest month of tracking is often eye-opening. A lot of people discover they’re spending more or less than they thought. Either way, you need a reasonable approximation of this number as your foundation.

A practical target for most people is somewhere between 70% and 90% of their pre-retirement income, but that varies widely depending on your lifestyle goals. The best number is the one that fits the life you want.

Step 2: Map Out Your Retirement Income Sources

Once you know what you need to spend, the next step is figuring out where the money will come from. For most Canadians, retirement income comes from some combination of the following:

• CPP (Canada Pension Plan): You can check your estimated benefit at any time on the Service Canada website. Timing matters a great deal here. To begin drawing benefits at 60 versus 65 versus 70 produces dramatically different outcomes depending on your situation.
• OAS (Old Age Security): Available at 65 for most Canadians or deferred to 70 for a higher monthly amount. Worth factoring in carefully.
• RRSP / RRIF: Your registered savings will eventually need to be converted to a RRIF by age 71. Withdrawals are taxable income, so the order and timing of drawdowns matter.
• TFSA: A powerful and flexible tool in retirement because withdrawals are tax-free and don’t affect income-tested benefits like OAS or GIS.
• Defined Benefit Pension: If you or your spouse has a DB pension, this is guaranteed income. Know the amount, the survivor benefit, when you can start receiving benefits and whether they are indexed to inflation.
• Non-registered accounts: These carry capital gains considerations but can be a useful source of tax-efficient income in the right sequence.

Write these down. Seeing all your income sources in one place, even roughly, immediately changes the shape of the question from “do we have enough?” to “how do we put this together?”

Step 3: Run a Simple Gap Analysis

Now you have two numbers: what you need and what you expect to have. The gap between them tells you a lot.

Here’s a straightforward way to think about it:

1. Estimate your guaranteed income in retirement (CPP + OAS + any DB pension).
2. Subtract that from your target annual spending.
3. The remaining amount is what your savings need to cover each year.
4. A common planning rule is to divide that annual shortfall by 0.04 (the 4% guideline) to get a rough savings target. For example, if you need $30,000 per year from your portfolio, you’d want roughly $750,000 saved.

This is an estimate, not a precise calculation. The actual number depends on your investment returns, tax situation, spending flexibility, and how long you live. But it gives you a realistic starting point and a sense of whether you’re in the ballpark.

If the number you land on feels manageable, that’s a good sign. If it feels daunting, it’s still useful because now you know what you’re working with, and you can start making intentional choices rather than just hoping for the best.

Step 4: Don’t Just Ask If You Have Enough. Ask How It All Fits Together

Reaching your target number isn’t the whole story. How you draw down your savings can be just as important as how much you have.

For example:

• Drawing down RRSPs before CPP and OAS kick in can be a smart move for many people. It reduces the size of future mandatory RRIF withdrawals and can lower your lifetime tax bill.
• Spousal income splitting can dramatically reduce a household’s combined tax burden, particularly when there’s an income imbalance between spouses.
• Leaving your TFSA intact for as long as possible preserves a tax-free pool you can draw from strategically, without affecting income-tested government benefits.
• Timing when you take CPP and OAS can be worth tens of thousands of dollars over a retirement, and the right answer depends on your health, income needs, and other resources.

This is where many self-directed investors hit a wall. Not because they’re doing anything wrong, but because optimizing the order and timing of retirement income genuinely requires projecting multiple scenarios at once. It’s more complex than the accumulation phase.  Getting this right is worth the effort, and for most people, it’s where real money is left on the table.

What “On Track” Really Means

In my experience, being on track for retirement isn’t about hitting a magic number by a specific age. It’s about three things:

1. You understand what you have, what you need, and roughly how long the runway is.
2. Your plan can bend without breaking if something changes: a job loss, a health event, markets doing something unexpected.
3. You can make decisions without second-guessing everything, because you understand why each piece of the plan exists.

That kind of confidence doesn’t come from guessing. It comes from doing the work of looking at your situation clearly.  Don’t be afraid to seek professional from someone who can help you see what you might be missing.

Three Things You Can Do This Week

If this makes sense, here are three concrete steps you can take right now:

1. Track one month of spending. Pull your last 30 days of bank and credit card statements and categorize them broadly. Housing, transportation, lifestyle, food. You’ll learn something useful, guaranteed.
2. Log into My Service Canada. Look up your estimated CPP and OAS benefits. These are based on your actual contribution history and will give you a realistic income anchor for your plan.
3. List all your accounts and rough balances in one place. RRSPs, TFSAs, non-registered, pensions. Seeing the full picture on a single page has a way of making the conversation with yourself (or with an advisor) much more productive.

These three steps take a few hours. But they move you from “I think we’re probably okay” to “here’s what we actually have,” which is a much more powerful place to plan from.

A Final Thought

Most of the people I talk to who are approaching retirement aren’t starting from zero. They’ve been doing a lot of things right for a long time. They just need a clear, honest look at where they stand and a thoughtful plan for what comes next.

You don’t need a 60-page plan written in financial jargon. You need something you understand, something you can use, and the confidence to move forward.

— David Martin

Eltero Financial | Fee-Only Financial Planning | Halifax, Nova Scotia

elterofinancial.com

DIY retirement planning Canada-wide has never had better tools or resources, but having the tools and knowing how to use them together are two different things. If you’re a DIY investor in Atlantic Canada and you’d like a second opinion on where you stand, I’d be glad to work through it with you. There’s no sales pitch of expensive products involved.  Just an honest, advice-only conversation about what you have and where you’re headed.

Ready to gain clarity on your financial future? As a fee-only, advice-only financial planner working virtually with clients across Canada, I help DIY investors and incorporated professionals create plans that actually fit their lives. No commissions, no sales tactics. Just objective guidance. Learn more at elterofinancial.com or reach out to start a conversation.

David Martin is an Advice-Only Financial Planner in Halifax NS,  with 25 years of experience serving Atlantic Canada DIY investors and business owners.

I help DIY investors in Atlantic Canada gain financial confidence.  Contact me today to schedule a free consultation and start your journey towards financial independence.

Connect with David on LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: Our content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment and tax-related decisions. You should seek independent financial advice from a financial advisor near you.