FAQ: How Do I Model a GIC Ladder?

We typically recommend you think about GICs as part of your fixed-income allocation, GICs just being one type of fixed-income investment.

So we wouldn’t necessarily recommend setting up a separate GIC ladder on top of your existing asset allocation (as this would then skew the overall asset allocation more conservative) but instead consider the GIC ladder simply as part of the fixed income allocation.

There is no way to dynamically create a GIC ladder in the platform at the moment.

But if you really wanted to you could use the “Savings” account for this purpose. Remember that the GIC ladder gets replenish each year, so in practical terms the GIC ladder in the Savings account will not change in size. For example, if the “gap” was $20,000 each year, the Savings account balance would remain at $60,000 (growing with interest). There is no need to model the contributions and withdrawals to the GIC ladder year by year because they simply cancel out.

You could then adjust the amount in the GIC ladder as the sources of income change, but again, this would need to be planned manually using the “Savings” account and overrides in Planning > Projections > Table.