§ Calculator · Retirement
Income floor / essential coverage
Looking for the time-horizon bucket strategy (cash / bonds / stocks with refill rules)? See the Three-bucket drawdown simulator.
What this is
Match spending categories to guaranteed income sources (income-floor approach)
Split retirement spending into essentials (must-pay), discretionary (lifestyle), and legacy (gifts/inheritance). Cover essentials with GUARANTEED income (CPP + OAS + DB pension). Use the portfolio for the rest. This is the INCOME-FLOOR variant of bucket planning, not the time-horizon variant.
- ·Essential bucket: rent/mortgage, groceries, utilities, transit, insurance, minimum healthcare. The stuff you must pay even in a market crash.
- ·Discretionary bucket: dining, travel, hobbies, gear. The stuff you can scale down in bad market years.
- ·Legacy bucket: gifts to kids, charitable, inheritance. Optional, future-dated.
Essential bucket
$46,800
Discretionary bucket
$18,000
Legacy bucket
$7,200
Essential coverage
100%
Portfolio burden /yr
$24,000
Coverage band
mostly resilient
Annual spending split into buckets
Essential coverage: guaranteed income vs essential bucket
Educational. Not financial advice. The 'cover essentials with guaranteed income' rule is the foundation of bucket strategy — defer CPP to 70 to maximise guaranteed income if your essentials are large.