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Coaching family prosperity --
Professionally, diligently, tirelessly. . . .
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Created by financial writer Bruce Cohen for the Ontario Securities Commission's Investor Education Fund, this elegant tool calculates investment returns needed to offset not only previous declines in portfolio value but for past periods of lost growth.
(On this same page the OSC has linked new and entertaining "scam, risk, and knowledge quizzes.")
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Tax calculators
Covering years from 2001 onward, Walter Harder's Income Tax Estimator offers clean and thoughtful simplicity.
Harder further provides a slick little Marginal Tax Rate Calculator. This is the rate at which your last dollar earned is taxed, and assists investment and tax decisions. For instance, at an MTR of 37.7%,
one earning $65,000 knows that income tax will be reduced by $377 for each $1,000 put into an RRSP.
For 2006, this MTR calculator illustrates the difference between receiving elegible dividends ("Large Corp Dividends") versus inelegible ("Small Business Dividends").
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Child and Family Benefits Online Calculator
From Revenue Canada, Use our calculator to determine the amount of child and family benefits, including related provincial and territorial benefits delivered by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), you may be entitled to receive. The calculation is based on information you will provide.
Site also includes a GST credit calculator.
The calculator can be used to illustrate income-enhancing aspects of income tax deductions. A mother in the first income tax bracket making a $1,000 RRSP contribution would not only reduce this year's income tax by $220 -- but would improve next year's income by $336.00.
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So the wee little whippersnappers don't believe that a candy bar once cost a nickel? Have them point their browser mouse this way.
From the Bank of Canada, good from 1914 on. (It tells me that if wages had kept pace, a chokerman today would be making better than twenty bucks an hour.)
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Of all the mortgage calculators reviewed,this one best combined ease of use with flexibility, especially varying payment periods: weekly, biweekly, accelerated.
Provided by CANADAMORTGAGE.com, an online mortgage broker.
This same page offers a few other valuable calculators, including An affordability chart (How much mortgage can you afford?), and a very sweet Rent Vs. Own Calculator. (Renting on Quadra never before looked so financially savvy.)
From Empire Life comes the perennial favourite, the Mortgage vs RRSP Calculator. This version allows you to test a lump sum contribution or prepayment and/or an additional monthly increase. A straight-forward one page statement is provided upon submission.
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Want to swap your yen for some euros?
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How much play time left?
The Longevity Calculator popularized by Tom Perls, medical doctor and associate professor of medicine and geriatrics at Boston University Medical Centre, author of Living to 100: Lessors in living to your maximum potential at any age.
Perls believes that many of the factors that influence how long we live are within our control. At the end of the quiz, an analysis suggests means for improving your score and adding years. (Flossing daily reduces toxic bacteria in the bloodstream that cause plaque and heart disease, adding half a year.)
You'll need a US zipcode. Feel free to borrow 97201, the Council Crest area of Portland Oregon.
For those under age 50, here is the special non US version.
From Sun Life, a low rent version
From Wisconsin based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co comes their Longevity Game, a more playful way to telling one to smarten up.
For a crotchety overview of all the Canadian longevity calculators out there, plus links, see Getting Older Stinks.com
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Retirement Income and Accumulations
There are numerous retirement calculators spattered across the internet, providing varying degrees of detail, sophistication, and often-questionable underlying assumptions. (Some assume the retiree will collect one hundred percent of Canadian Pension Plan benefits, while others don't count government benefits at all. With either approach, it's garbage in, garbage out.) With caveats, three better versions are here offered.
The Service Canada Retirement Income Calculator, from Human Resources Development Canada, thoroughly explains itself along the way, with emphasis on how the Canadian Pension Plan and Old Age Security actually operate.
What should you be saving for retirement? is created by financial writer Bruce Cohen, sponsored online by Fiscal Agents, an Ontario financial firm. This version is favoured for those who wish to factor in a provincial or corporate pension plan.
Morningstar RRSP Planning establishes how much is wanted in retirement, and how much more must be saved. Uses both registered and non-registered savings vehicles. Spits out a highly detailed table with projections in future dollars.
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RRIFs, under Revenue Canada regulation, must pay out a minimum annual amount — subject to an annuitant's age — but which can never be accurately determined until December 31 of each year. LRIFs (Locked-in Retirement Income Funds) and LIFs (Life Income Funds) are also subject to a maximum annual limit — and to the quirks of provincial pension legislation. This handy calculator, from Mackenzie Financial,
readily handles all three, and is customizable to an individual's age. It allows for determining what the annual minimum withdrawals must be, or for trying a fixed dollar or percentage amount to be received.
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The Something for Everyone Department
Martindale's Calculators On-Line Center, the mother of all calculator sites,
took years to build, and seemingly years to peruse: Currently the Calculators On-Line Center contains over "18,180" Calculators created
by over "3,290" very "CREATIVE" Individuals, Businesses & Tax Supported Entities World Wide.
Among all the overwhelming features, hours alone could be too easily squandered converting today's Canadian date to myriad calendars, ancient and transcultural. (According to the Aztecs, today was a good day for doing battle. It signifies power, valor, and reckless abandon in the face of danger.)
Arts, science, crafts, hobbies, finance, here is indeed a calculator for every conceivable need.
Unlike Martindale's labour of love, Calculator.com is a commercial site, cluttered with advertising banners. But it does provide a more pleasant and more accessible interface. It's strong on the simple stuff, allowing Canadians to translate items like, "Bloody 'ell, mate, my weight's nigh back to 14 stone! You know, for when you really need to settle those drinking bets.
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The Bank of Canada maintains information on more than 700,000 accounts relinquished to it by banks, trust companies, and credit unions -- all because they'd lost track of the owners.
Spend some fun time plugging in your name, names of family, friends and colleagues, your best buddies from high school. Odds are you'll strike gold. Or at least the odd loonie.
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Being dollared to death by fees from your bank?
This online shopping tool from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
may help you find the least expensive banking package fitting your specific needs.
The program asks some simple questions around your banking habits to
develop a profile, then searches its database to rank
the least costly options matching it.
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