All the Numbers

Events outside the plan's horizon

From the All the Numbers wiki · The plan itself

The projection runs from its start year for a fixed number of years. Anything dated outside that window has no month to happen in.

A new plan's length follows the people in it: it runs through the year the younger person turns 90, until a length is chosen. That is about the age half of people outlive; FP Canada's guidelines put it at 89 to 92 for individuals under 80, and recommend planning to an age with at most a 25% chance of being outlived, which is higher (94 to 99 depending on sex and household). Ninety is therefore a choice, and it can be changed.[1] See who the plan is about.

What the engine does

It ignores the item and warns, naming it. It does not:

  • clamp the date to the nearest month inside the horizon, which would put money in a year you did not choose, or
  • extend the horizon silently, which would change every figure on the page.

The same applies to a home whose purchase falls outside the horizon (see selling a home), a sale that falls outside it, and a sale dated before its own purchase — that last one is almost always a typo in the sale year.

What to do about it

Either move the date inside the window or lengthen the horizon in the advanced assumptions. Dated changes such as a job loss or a rate jump are described in scenarios and life events. Both are one field, and the projection updates as you type.

See also: net worth, as the plan counts it, inflation and today's dollars.

See also

  • Inflation and today's dollars · The default inflation rate is 2.5% a year. A future dollar amount can be shown as is, or divided by (1 + inflation) for each year to show what it would buy today.
  • Monte Carlo: many market histories · The Simulation page runs the plan 500 times with investment returns and home prices drawn at random each year, then shows the spread of net worth and how many runs finish, borrow or run out of money.
  • Net worth, as the plan counts it · Net worth is everything the plan holds (cash, investment and registered accounts, homes at market value) minus mortgages, credit lines, debts and tax owing. It is not reduced for selling costs or for tax on money still in an RRSP.
  • Retirement age · The age at which a person's pay stops in the plan, 65 unless you give another. Their monthly contributions stop then, and an RRSP becomes a RRIF at 71.
  • Scenarios and life events · The Scenarios page lets you drop dated events onto a copy of your plan, such as a job loss, a market drop or a rate jump, and see where net worth ends up. Each event is a change to the plan run through the ordinary projection, not a separate calculator.
  • Selling a home · A sale turns the home's projected market value into cash after selling costs (your province's typical commission, the sales tax on it and legal fees) and the mortgage payout. The gain on a principal residence is exempt from tax, apart from the part that was rented out when the exemption does not cover it.
  • Who the plan is about · A plan covers one person or two. Where a birth year is missing the plan assumes the person is 40 and born on 1 January, says so on the page, and uses that age for tax, pension and account rules until the real one is entered.

References

  1. ↑FP Canada / Institute of Financial Planning, 2026 Projection Assumption Guidelines, §4 e) "Projection Period" and Probability of Survival table (CPM2014 projected to 2026) · Plans run to this age by default — about the median: FP Canada's guidelines put the age half of people outlive at 89–92 for individuals under 80. The same guidelines recommend planning to the age a person has at most a 25% chance of outliving — 94–95 for a man, 96–97 for a woman, 98–99 for either of a man–woman couple — so this is a choice, and editable · 90 years · effective 2026-09-25