This week's blog is a personal one.

Most of our users at Optiml are people approaching or already in retirement. That's no surprise, we specialize in the decumulation phase and estate planning. On a weekly basis, we get emails from users saying they just told their boss they are retiring at the end of the year because of the confidence Optiml gave them to make that decision. On our weekly calls, we constantly hear people say they had no idea they would have that much money left for their estate, or that they didn't realize they could afford to spend that much in retirement.

But this week, it was my own family who used Optiml, and it wasn't for retirement. It was to buy their very first home.

Starting Over in a New Country

Meet Nick and Jodie. They're 33 and 36, and they immigrated to Canada from Durban, South Africa three years ago. Nick is my wife's cousin, and ever since he and Jodie moved to Halifax, we've become close.

Naturally, as we got to know each other, the question came up: "So, what do you do?"

Three years ago, as I explained Optiml to them, I really emphasized how valuable it could be for their situation. Here were two immigrants arriving in Canada with their life savings, with no understanding of a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA), First Home Savings Account (FHSA), Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), pensions, or how our tax system even works. They weren't just starting a new job or a new home, they were starting from zero on everything.

"I Thought That Was Crazy"

I helped Nick move into his new home last weekend. While we were taking a break, he turned to me and said:

"I still remember when we first set up our Optiml account and it said we could buy a home in 3 to 4 years. At the time, I thought that was crazy."

That conversation is what prompted me to write this. I've never taken a personal angle in a blog post before, but it was such a good reminder of how powerful it is to have a real goal and a real plan behind it.

Three years ago, buying a home probably felt distant, maybe even out of reach, for two people who had just landed in a new country. They wouldn't have been alone in that feeling. A recent NerdWallet Canada survey found 63% of Canadians between 18 and 34 believe homeownership is out of reach, more than double the rate among Canadians over 55. But seeing it laid out in front of them, with actual numbers and an actual timeline, gave them something to aim at.

Three Years of Sticking to the Plan

Nick and Jodie did the rest themselves. They made their contributions to their FHSA, saved for their down payment, and used Optiml to simulate different home prices and purchase timelines along the way, checking in as their income and savings changed. It gave them a way to test the plan against reality instead of just hoping it would work out.

Their timeline lines up almost exactly with the national average. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) 2025 mortgage consumer survey put the average time to save a down payment at 3.4 years. CMHC also found that 41% of first-time homebuyers received a financial gift from family, averaging over $74,000. Nick and Jodie didn't, they got there on their own contributions.

They'll both tell you they still can't quite believe they own a home today.

Optiml gave them the confidence that it was achievable in the first place. But they made the contributions, they stuck to the timeline, and they showed up every step of the way. That part is entirely theirs.

Turning the Key

Standing in that house with Nick, three years after that first conversation about Optiml, was a genuinely great moment. It's easy to underestimate what it means to hand someone a number and a date and have them actually get there. For Nick and Jodie, that number wasn't abstract anymore, it was a front door with their names on it.

It's also a good reminder that a plan isn't just useful when you're winding down your career and figuring out how to spend what you've saved. It's just as useful at the very beginning, when you're trying to figure out if a goal like homeownership is even realistic, and what it will actually take to get there.

Watching two people go from "that seems crazy" to holding their own keys is exactly why we built Optiml the way we did, to work for people at any stage of the journey, not just the end of it.