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What ten years of waiting actually costs.

Compounding is unfair in one specific way: the early years do most of the work, and you only get them once. This shows the size of that effect with your own numbers.

Your plan

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Age you start

Your age today. The projection runs from here to the age you stop.

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When you stop contributing and start drawing on it.

Rates to compare

Three assumptions, so you can see the spread rather than one confident-looking number.

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What rate should I put in?

Whatever you choose is an assumption, not a promise. As a guide, these are the ranges commonly used for planning against the options inside an insurance contract — a universal life policy or an insurance savings contract:

Guaranteed interest accounts, and GICs — roughly 1–3%
The rate is contractually guaranteed for a fixed term, so the money cannot fall. That certainty is what you pay for: over a long stretch this is usually the option that loses ground to inflation.
Segregated funds and managed portfolios — often assumed at 4–7%
Nothing is guaranteed year to year and the balance can fall. What a segregated fund adds over an ordinary fund is a maturity and death benefit guarantee on your deposits, for a higher fee. The planning range is wide because the outcome depends on the mix of equities and fixed income you hold.

Which of these belongs in your contract is a question about your timeline and how much of a fall you could sit through — not about which number looks best here. That is the part I do with you, and it is reviewed as your circumstances change.

Ranges are illustrative planning assumptions, not offers, forecasts or guarantees, and no past return predicts a future one. Guaranteed rates are quoted by the insurer on the day and move constantly. I am licensed for insurance, so what I can place for you are the options inside an insurance contract — not mutual funds or securities.

What it becomes, year by year

Balance at each age, at three assumed rates, against what you actually contributed.

  • What you put in

What waiting costs

Same monthly amount, same middle rate, same finish age — only the start date moves.

    Why the early years matter so much

    Every dollar you save has a job: earn a return, and then have that return earn a return. A dollar saved at 25 has forty years to do the second part. A dollar saved at 45 has twenty. That is the entire mechanism, and it is why the first ten years of saving usually matter more than the ten years before retirement, when most people finally get serious.

    Which is also the honest reason this page exists. Nobody can promise you a rate. What can be said with confidence is that the start date is worth more than the rate at most realistic assumptions — and the start date is the one you control.

    What this deliberately does not do

    • It is not a projection. The rates are assumptions you typed in. Real returns are not a smooth line; they arrive as a jagged sequence, and the order matters more than most people expect as you approach the end.
    • It ignores fees and tax. Both are real. A 6% return with 2% of fees is a 4% return. Whether the account is a TFSA, an RRSP or a taxable account changes what you keep.
    • It ignores inflation. The figures are in today's dollars going in and future dollars coming out. Subtract two to three per cent a year to think in real terms.
    • It is not advice, and it is not a product. No product on this site pays a rate you choose on a form. See what I can and cannot help with.

    Where I fit

    I am licensed for insurance, which inside a registered account means segregated funds and annuities. I cannot sell you an index fund and I do not manage portfolios. What I can do is make sure the account is the right one, the beneficiary designation is right, and the money that would keep arriving for your family if you were not here is actually insured.

    The rate is the part you cannot control.

    The start date, the amount, and whether the money is sheltered from tax — those you can. That is most of a twenty-minute conversation.

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