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Optiml Strategy
Set Your Estate Target
Lock in your legacy. Spend everything else.
Set My Estate TargetSpending Over Time
Optiml vs. No StrategyYour spending
Estate target
Target
What is this strategy?
Set Your Estate Target
The Set Estate Target strategy gives you the best of both worlds. You decide the exact amount you want to leave behind, whether that is $100K to help with a down payment, $500K for your kids, or a specific charitable gift, and Optiml maximizes everything you can spend before then. No more guessing how much you can afford to enjoy.
The Optimizer
Optiml does not follow an order. It tests everything.
There is no preset withdrawal order. Every possible combination of deposits and withdrawals is evaluated against your specific financial plan.
What Set Target Actually Means
Lock in your legacy. Spend everything above it.
This strategy lets you set an exact after-tax dollar amount you want to leave behind for your beneficiaries. Optiml then tells you whether that target is achievable, and how much more you can spend through retirement on top of your base income needs while still hitting it.
Optiml first confirms your desired after-tax income is met every year of your plan. It then checks what your after-tax estate value could realistically be, compares it against your set target, and builds a plan that guarantees you hit that number. Along the way, it calculates your Surplus Spending: how much more you can spend each year, on top of your base income, without ever missing your estate goal.
Your estate financial target is typically made up of your liquid investments, such as your TFSA, RRIF, and non-registered accounts. You also have the option to include physical assets you want to leave behind as part of that overall value. It is recommended to keep them separate, but the choice is yours.
This is not about hoping you hit a number.
It is about knowing exactly what you will leave behind, and spending everything above that floor with complete confidence.
Base Expenses + Surplus Spending
Base Expenses
Surplus Spending
Drag the sliders to adjust your surplus spending window
Plan Start
50
Surplus Begins
58
Surplus Ends
78
Life Expectancy
85
Illustrative example. Your actual surplus spending depends on your estate target, accounts, income needs, and goals. Never a template.
Under the Hood
A guaranteed legacy floor, and as much spending as possible above it.
This strategy runs on the same optimization engine as Maximize Spending. It finds the highest sustainable surplus spending within your chosen window, using the same discounted objective. The key difference is one additional binding constraint: your after-tax estate at the end of the plan must be at or above the target you set.
Think of it as placing a floor under Maximize Spending. The optimizer cannot accept any plan that misses your estate goal - that target is a hard requirement, not a preference. Within that constraint, it finds the maximum amount you can spend during retirement. If both are achievable, you get exactly that: the legacy you planned for, and the highest possible surplus spending on top of it.
Your estate target is defined in after-tax dollars and covers your liquid investment accounts by default. You also have the option to include the value of physical assets such as real estate. Including assets raises the apparent estate value and can free up more spending room - but asset values are subject to market conditions, sale costs, and timing uncertainty. Keeping physical assets separate and treating them as a bonus above your liquid target is generally the more conservative approach.
The Objective
Identical to Maximize Spending - the optimizer finds the highest present-value surplus within your window, discounted by your expected portfolio growth rate:
Maximize: ∑ₜ [ Surplus_t · (1/(1+g))ᵗ ]
t = year index within the surplus window
Surplus_t = above-base spending in year t
g = expected portfolio growth rate
Discounting at the portfolio growth rate prevents the optimizer from deferring all spending to the final year. Earlier surplus carries more weight, producing a plan that matches how and when you actually want to spend.
Every path must satisfy the constraints
Your income from all sources, minus all taxes, living expenses, goals, and deposits, must net to exactly zero each year. No path is accepted that leaves you short of what you need to live.
Income - Taxes - Expenses - Goals - Deposits = 0
Outside your surplus window this holds exactly as written. Inside the window, surplus spending becomes part of the equation - the remaining funds after taxes, base expenses, goals, and deposits make up surplus spending, and that surplus must be positive:
Income - Taxes - Base Expenses - Goals - Deposits = Surplus ≥ 0
Additionally, every accepted plan must satisfy an estate floor condition - your after-tax estate at end of plan must meet your target:
After-Tax Estate ≥ Estate Target
This constraint is enforced alongside the spending constraints. The optimizer first verifies the estate floor can be reached, then maximizes surplus above it. Both goals are solved simultaneously - not sequentially.
Worth knowing before you choose this strategy
Including physical assets such as real estate can have a significant effect on the optimizer's behaviour. If your estate target is $1M but your primary residence is projected to be worth $1.5M at the end of the analysis and you have chosen to include it, the optimizer sees the target as already satisfied by the property alone. It will then behave like the Maximize Spending strategy - draining your liquid investments as much as possible - since there is no additional estate floor left to protect.
The result is a precise, year-by-year plan: your estate target is locked in, your surplus spending is maximized above it, and every account-level withdrawal is sequenced for the lowest possible tax cost along the way.
Is this strategy right for you?
Perfect Fit
Who This Strategy Is For
You have beneficiaries you want to leave some money behind to, just not everything
You want to simulate leaving a specific after-tax dollar amount behind
You want to see how much more you can spend through retirement on top of your desired after-tax income needs
May Not Be Right If...
This Strategy May Not Be For You
You have no plans to leave any money behind
You only want to leave physical assets behind, not any liquid investments
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