[Sylvanfan]

I'm very novice at taxes, and too poor to give advice. But if you have 20 grand in taxed income combined with say 30 grand to draw from your TFSA shouldn't that ultimately give you as much or more money than someone trying to take 65 per year from a RRIF?

Obviously the wealthy will use RRSP, and TFSA for income style investments, and than do their equity investing outside the RRSP as it's more tax efficient.

But for the working poor like myself who will be lucky to draw 50 grand in todays money from our retirement fund...would the TFSA be something to use to try and achieve a split where you pay minimal tax later? I mean me writing off 5 grand against my income tax in my working poor bracket gets me back like 1200 a year, enough to buy a month and a half of day care for one kid. Whereas maybe it can save me having to pay 10 times that in tax later on.

As an example if I did 5k a year for the next 30 years at 8% return, that leaves me with around 620 in future value. Or about 24k per year for 25 years. So the tax paid on that amount should be pretty small per year. Which would make it seem the first 5k for that timeline is as well off in the RRSP to get your refund. But if you're investing a bit more, maybe there is a number where the working poor like myself should look at putting our money into the TFSA.