Canwi models your expenses to project how much cash you're spending each year, how those costs grow over time, and - where applicable - how they reduce your taxable income. Getting your expenses right is important because they directly affect your cashflow projections and, ultimately, how much you're able to save and invest over time.

There are three main ways expenses are captured in Canwi:

You can view and edit your living expenses by selecting Edit Expenses from the Living Expenses section on the Initial Position page.

Canwi uses a flexible bucketing system - you can organise your expenses into whatever categories and line items make sense for your situation. By default, we set you up with three top-level categories and some common line items to get you started:

You're not locked into these. You can rename categories, add new ones, create your own line items, or remove anything that doesn't apply. The goal is a structure that reflects how you actually think about your spending.

Each category contains individual expense line items. You can expand a category to see the breakdown, and use Expand All to view everything at once.

Not sure where to start? Our guide Baselining Your Expenses walks through how to figure out what you're actually spending across each category.

Clicking into an expense (via Advanced mode) reveals the following settings:

Set the dollar amount and payment frequency (e.g. monthly, weekly, annually). Canwi will convert all expenses to an annual figure for projection purposes.

Toggle Tax Deductible on if this expense is deductible against your income. When enabled, you'll be prompted to select:

Expense Type explained: A Cash expense hits your cashflow each year. A Depreciation expense only reduces the tax you pay - no money actually leaves your account. This distinction matters for accurate net worth and cashflow projections.

By default, expenses grow at the Inflation / CPI rate set in your Scenario Settings. You can toggle Custom Rate on to override this with either:

This is useful where certain costs - like insurances or childcare - tend to grow faster or slower than general inflation.

When you add or edit a property asset, you'll see a dedicated Property Expenses section. This is where you enter the ongoing costs associated with that specific property - things like:

These expenses are automatically treated as tax-deductible for investment properties and are included directly in your cashflow projections. They're separate from your Living Expenses because they're tied to the asset itself, and Canwi needs to attribute them to the correct owner for tax purposes.

You can also enter Annual Depreciation here - a non-cash deduction for wear and tear on the building structure and fixtures. A quantity surveyor can provide a formal depreciation schedule. Most depreciation schedules run for 40 years from the purchase date, and Canwi defaults the End Year to reflect this (though you can adjust it).

Your expenses won't stay the same forever. You might pay off a car loan, stop paying for childcare, or take on a new recurring cost after a life event.

The Change Expenses event on the Canwi timeline lets you modify any expense at a future point in your plan. You can use it to:

To use it, drag a Change Expenses event onto your timeline, set the year it takes effect, and update the relevant expense values. From that year forward, the updated amounts will flow through your projections.

Why are my property expenses showing in two places - the asset and my Living Expenses?

They shouldn't be - and if they are, you'll want to remove the duplication. Property running costs (council rates, strata, property management fees, etc.) should ideally be entered in the Property Expenses section of the Add/Edit Asset modal, not in your Living Expenses. This ensures Canwi correctly attributes the deduction to the right owner and asset, and avoids double-counting the cashflow impact.

If you've already entered property costs in Living Expenses, you can either remove them from there and re-enter in the asset.