How to Automate Your Investment Contributions

Building long-term wealth isn’t just about investment choices—it’s about consistent saving habits. A Pre-Authorized Contribution Plan (PAC) is a simple yet powerful tool that automates regular contributions to your investments, helping you stay on track toward your financial goals.

For anyone looking to grow their savings steadily, PACs provide structure, discipline, and the psychological advantage of automating good financial behavior.

What Is a Pre-Authorized Contribution Plan (PAC)?

A PAC is a scheduled, automated plan that withdraws a set amount from your bank account and invests it into your chosen savings or investment account—such as a TFSA, RRSP, or non-registered account.

Key features:

Regular, automatic contributions (e.g., monthly, bi-weekly).
Supports dollar-cost averaging, buying investments consistently over time.
Helps ensure savings is treated as a priority, not an afterthought.

Optimize helps you set up PACs that are aligned with your personal goals and cash flow.

Benefits of Using a PAC

The advantages of PACs are both financial and behavioural:

Benefit	Why It Matters
Builds wealth consistently	Encourages disciplined, regular saving and compounding growth.
Removes emotion from decisions	Automates contributions, reducing reactive behavior.
Eases budgeting	Makes saving a fixed, predictable part of your plan.
Reduces timing risk	Dollar-cost averaging avoids lump-sum investing at market highs.
Simplifies long-term planning	Ensures continuous progress toward financial goals.

PACs turn saving into a habit, rather than relying on irregular lump-sum investments.

PACs and Dollar-Cost Averaging: Reducing Timing Risk

One of the core benefits of PACs is dollar-cost averaging:

By investing at regular intervals, you spread out the cost of purchases.
You buy more units when prices are low and fewer when prices are high.
This reduces the impact of market volatility and removes the need to time the market perfectly.

Note: While it doesn’t guarantee profits, dollar-cost averaging helps smooth investment performance over time, supporting long-term growth.

How PACs Fit Into Your Financial Plan

PACs are ideal for:

Use Case	How a PAC Supports It
Retirement savings	Automates RRSP or TFSA contributions.
Education savings	Provides regular RESP contributions.
Non-registered portfolio growth	Builds taxable investments steadily.
Goal-based saving	Supports home down payments, emergency funds, or other specific goals.

At Optimize, we ensure your PAC is not only automated but also strategically integrated with your broader financial plan.

How Optimize Helps You Set Up and Manage a Pre-Authorized Contribution Plan

At Optimize, we make sure your PAC works as a strategic part of your wealth-building journey. We help you:

Determine the right contribution amount and frequency, based on your goals and cash flow.
Select suitable investments for your PAC contributions.
Coordinate PACs with other savings priorities, like RRSPs, TFSAs, and RESP goals.
Adjust your PAC over time, as your income, expenses, and objectives evolve.
Monitor your progress, ensuring your savings are aligned with your long-term financial plan.

With Optimize’s guidance, a PAC becomes more than an automated transfer—it becomes a key driver of your long-term financial success.