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Down payment or dream trip? What about retirement? Has the global pandemic derailed your plans? If you’re entering the workforce and struggling to decide how you’ll meet competing financial goals, this calculator is here to help. Simply plug in your income and monthly living costs, and the Real Life Money Launcher will help you map out how much of each paycheque should be going into short-term goals like weddings, medium-term goals like home ownership and long-term objectives like retirement.

Rob Carrick's

Real Life Money Launcher

How to set up your savings after you start working

Step 1. Start with your income

Step 2. Plug in your monthly expenses

10% of your monthly takehome pay is a good target, but you decide your own amount. This is what we'll use to calculate your results.

If you have your saving and investing locked in as a regular expense, it's OK to spend your whole takehome pay.

Step 3. Define your savings goals to see your results

Saving goals for the near or medium term (1-10 years)

You tell us the % of your total savings for each goal:

We tell you how much to save per month:

Money needed in the next few years should be kept safe and not invested in the stock market. Learn more about zero risk high interest savings accounts.

Investing for the long term (10+ years)

0 of 100% allocated

Pick your risk profile to see your results. Risk is defined here as exposure to the stock market. Stocks can be expected to deliver higher returns than bonds over the long term, but they can fall hard in the short term. Bonds help limit the pain when stocks fall. Learn more about investment risk profiles and check out Volume One and Volume Two of our millennial investing guide.

  • High risk
  • Med. risk
  • Low risk
Not worried about stock market risk
90% stocks, 10% bonds
Reign in the risk a bit
75% stocks, 25% bonds
Nervous investor
60% stocks, 40% bonds

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