Lifestyle Reality Check
Enter your household income, expenses, age, and savings. See where you stand on the Canadian standard-of-living ladder — and how much you need to save for a good life now and in retirement.
Your household
Money in & out (per month)
What you've built
Count savings and investments only — not home equity. Projections use a 5% real (after-inflation) return, so everything is in today's dollars.
Right now your household is living a
🙂 Comfortable
lifestyle — ahead of about 51% of Canadian households.
Struggling
Getting by
Comfortable
Good life
Luxury
To reach a Good life standard of living, this household would need about $2,567/mo more take-home (after tax).
$1,100
Monthly breathing room
income left after expenses
13%
Savings rate
Canada avg ~6% · healthy 15%
74%
Saved for age 35
of the $54,000 rule-of-thumb target
Can you keep this life going in retirement?
Funding $40,800/yr of spending from age 65, after CPP + OAS.
On your current pace
$651,237
projected nest egg at 65
What this life needs
$570,000
25× your spending, less benefits
You're on track — with room to spare.
Your current pace funds this lifestyle in retirement. Saving $600/mo keeps you there.
How this works & where the numbers come from
This is an educational reality-check, not financial advice or a precise forecast. It compares your situation to public Canadian benchmarks so you can see, roughly, how you're doing and what it would take to do better.
What counts as a 'comfortable' income in Canada?
There's no official line, but a useful benchmark is Statistics Canada's median adjusted (per-person-equivalent) after-tax income, which is roughly $53,000. A household at about that level is living a typical Canadian standard of living. Around 1.6× the median starts to feel like a 'good life', and roughly 3× and up is a luxury lifestyle. Because the figure is adjusted for household size, a family of four needs more total income than a single person to reach the same standard.
How does the tool decide which 'lifestyle tier' I'm in?
It takes your household after-tax income and divides it by the square root of your household size — the same 'equivalence scale' Statistics Canada uses so families and singles can be compared fairly. That adjusted figure is then compared to multiples of the Canadian median: below 0.5× is struggling, 0.5–1× is getting by, 1–1.6× is comfortable, 1.6–3× is a good life, and above 3× is luxury. The percentile is an approximate estimate of how many Canadian households sit at or below your level.
How much should I have saved for my age?
A common rule of thumb is to have roughly 1× your annual income saved by 35, 3× by 45, 6× by 55, and 9–10× by retirement. This tool applies a conservative version of that rule to your take-home income. It's a guideline, not a verdict — starting late, a paid-off home, a pension, or lower retirement spending can all change what 'enough' means for you.
How is the retirement number calculated?
It uses the '4% rule': to safely fund a level of spending in retirement you need about 25 times that annual amount invested. We subtract an estimate of your CPP and OAS benefits first, then project your current savings plus monthly contributions forward at a 5% real (after-inflation) return — so every number is in today's dollars. The result is an educational estimate, not financial advice; your real plan should account for your specific pensions, taxes, and goals.
Benchmarks are approximate and drawn from Statistics Canada (median adjusted after-tax income and the Low Income Measure), the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security average payments, and standard personal-finance rules of thumb (the 4% / 25× rule and salary-multiple savings targets). Thresholds are illustrative and vary by region, year, and household. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any product.