Will my money last?

The 4% rule came from one landmark study: a 30-year retirement, one mix of stocks and bonds, and no fees. Your clients' plans differ on every count. The Big Picture finds the safe rate for their own portfolio, fees, retirement length and comfort with risk, and shows the history behind the number.

Monte Carlo tools rely on assumptions about future returns, volatility and correlations, and use them to generate hypothetical paths. They're useful, but theoretical. The Big Picture uses what actually happened, including the real sequences of good and bad years that random models can smooth away. Neither approach predicts the future; both are guides to sensible decisions.

No one knows what future returns will be. Nearly a century of data includes a depression, a world war,More than 90 years of data include a world war, 1970s stagflation, double-digit interest rates and several crashes. A plan that held up through all of that is prepared for a wide range of futures. Forecasts are a weak foundation: in 1979, Business Week declared “The Death of Equities” on the eve of one of history's great bull markets. To simulate lower returns, simply raise the annual fee, which effectively lowers returns in every period.

No, and it isn't meant to. The Big Picture is built for the conversation: showing a prospect what's realistic, setting expectations with a new client, or revisiting the plan with a longtime one. Use it alongside your planning software to make the trade-offs clear and the numbers believable.

Yes. Build up to four portfolios from twelve asset classes and set the fees and rebalancing. Add Social Security or a pension from the year it startsCPP, OAS or a pension, each from the year it starts, a legacy to leave behind, and how spending should grow: with actual inflation, at a fixed rate, or not at all.

Yes. Saving for Retirement works the same way for savers: it shows the historical odds of reaching a savings target, and the trade-offs among portfolio, saving, fees and time.

Often more than clients expect. One option holds spending flat for a year after the portfolio has a down year, then resumes inflation increases. That modest belt-tightening has historically raised safe rates by about half a percentage point, and the program shows the effect for any plan.

We deliberately stop there. Research on how retirees' spending changes over time is mixed (some studies find it falls, others that it rises with medical costs), and the early years of retirement largely decide the outcome anyway.

Failure is rarely sudden. At the safe rate, the historical retirements that did run out of money did so late in the period, which leaves time to notice and adjust. That's why we suggest revisiting the plan every year or two: after good markets, clients can often give themselves a raise.

That's the point. Every result is tied to real events, from 1929 to the 1970sfrom the Second World War to the 1970s, rather than abstract probabilities. Each chart comes with a plain-language explanation, and the client report is written for clients, not analysts.

Results are before tax, because taxes depend on the account type, jurisdiction and cost basis of each client. To approximate their drag on returns, simply raise the annual fee.

U.S. stocks, Treasury bills and 5-year government bonds come from the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at the University of Chicago. International and emerging markets stocks, 10-year government bonds, global bonds and gold come from Global Financial Data, and inflation from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Global Financial Data. All are monthly total returns from January 1926.Canadian stocks, bonds and Treasury bills, international and emerging markets stocks, U.S. 10-year government bonds, global bonds, gold and Canadian inflation come from Global Financial Data. U.S. stocks come from the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at the University of Chicago. All are monthly total returns in Canadian dollars from January 1935, with U.S. and international returns converted at historical exchange rates.

Choose monthly or yearly billing at any point during your trial; nothing is charged until the trial is over. If you don't choose a plan, access simply ends, and your saved work is kept in case you come back. For two or more advisors, contact us about a team plan.