How to use these guides

Welcome. These guides are the actual methodology behind Bracket’s planning work, written the way you’d want technical documentation written: precise, opinionated where it matters, and honest about trade-offs. Everything here is written for Canadian taxpayers — CRA rules, Canadian accounts, Canadian dollars.

Read like an advice-only planner would write

Nothing here is a sales funnel. If you read every page and decide to do it all yourself, great — that’s a legitimate outcome and you’ll be better off for it.

Who these are for

If you’re an engineer, geoscientist, physicist, or any technical professional — in mining, energy, utilities, manufacturing, consulting, finance, or research — with a workplace pension, equity comp, or simply a healthy savings rate, these guides map directly onto your situation. See Is Bracket right for you?.

How they’re organized

• Pensions & retirement plans — for many engineers the biggest asset and the biggest decision: DB vs DC and the commuted value call.
• Equity compensation — RSUs, stock options, and ESPP, if your package includes them.
• Tax strategy — the moves that quietly compound: the RRSP/TFSA/FHSA stack, tax-loss selling, and asset location.
• FIRE & investing — building the portfolio and figuring out your number, including an interactive FIRE calculator.
• The cost of advice — why fee structure quietly decides your outcome.

A note on what this is and isn’t

These are educational guides, not individualized advice. Your situation has details a public page can’t know about. When a decision is big or irreversible — taking a pension’s commuted value, exercising options, a large RRSP withdrawal — model it carefully or talk to someone who will.

Ready? If you have a workplace pension, start with DB vs DC pensions.