Know Your Numbers

Mark's Spreadsheet projects income, expenses, taxes, account balances and estate values for a single person or couple for the next 50 years. To do this, it must make certain assumptions about inflation and tax rules many years into the future which may or may not become reality.

Beyond this, the spreadsheet relies on high quality user input to generate its projections. As the saying goes "garbage in, garbage out". Here are the numbers you need to provide to make best use of the spreadsheet. If you do your own taxes you should be able to manage this. If you find the following list intimidating, perhaps it is best to work with a professional instead.

• Name, birthdate and province of residence (all Canadian provinces and territories are currently supported)

• Projected monthly CPP/QPP amount and age from your My Service Canada account

• Expected gross annual salary and bonus and any deductions other than CPP/QPP and EI (if employed)

• Details of any self-employment income

• Details from pensions other than CPP/QPP and OAS (e.g. Defined Benefit, Defined Contribution, Group RRSP)

• Any other income not from investment accounts

• Investment account balances at the start of the year (savings, non-registered, TFSA, LIRA/LIF, RRSP/RRIF) and estimated rates of return for each

• Adjusted Cost Base (ACB) for non-registered accounts (also called "Book Value")

• Value and ACB of any other major assets beyond your principal residence

• Annual amount of any loans and payments including mortgage(s) and reverse mortgage

• Income tax information: total tax due for previous year, net capital loss carry forward, TFSA and RRSP contribution room

• Life insurance cash value and death benefit

• If married, all the above for your spouse and your date of marriage

• Annual spending (budget)  not including income tax, charitable donations, mortgage and loan payments

• Annual charitable donations and any donation carryforward from your income tax

• Estimated market value of your principal residence and total amount of any mortgage(s)

Update your numbers and rerun your projections annually using Mark's latest spreadsheet.