Can I save $10,000 in a year inside a TFSA?

Only if you have the room. The TFSA annual limit for 2026 is $7,000, so $10,000 fits only if you're carrying unused room from previous years, as many Canadians are. If you're working with this year's room alone, put $7,000 in the TFSA and the other $3,000 in a non-registered savings account, or an FHSA if you're saving for a first home.

How much interest will I earn saving $10,000 over a year?

Roughly $125 in a savings account paying 2.75 percent. Your balance starts at zero and climbs month by month, so the full $10,000 only sits there at the very end. Worth having, but at a one-year timeline the transfers do nearly all of the work.

Should I pay off debt before saving $10,000?

If you're carrying a credit card balance, mostly yes. Card interest in Canada typically runs around 20 percent, far more than any savings account pays. The FCAC order of operations works well here: build a small $500 to $1,000 cushion, clear the high-interest debt, then come back to the $10,000.

How do I save $10,000 in a year on a low income?

Honestly, on a $41,000 after-tax income, $10,000 means banking about a quarter of everything you take home, and for most people that isn't realistic. A target you actually reach beats one you abandon in March. Start with what you can automate, even $25 a week, and raise it as your income grows.

Does Lodavo hold my $10,000 or pay interest on it?

Neither. Your savings sit in your own Canadian bank account and keep earning whatever that account already earns, and Lodavo holds none of it. It isn't a bank account, so it pays no interest of its own. What it does is reward every week you keep saving with free tickets in the weekly draw.

How to Save $10,000 in a Year in Canada (2026)

Saving $10,000 in a year comes down to one number: $833 a month. Broken up, that’s $385 every second Friday, $192 a week, or about $27 a day. The arithmetic is the easy part. Whether $10,000 fits your life is the real question, so this guide works through the math, who the goal is realistic for, where to find the money, and where to keep it.

How much do you need to save each month to reach $10,000?

To save $10,000 in a year, set aside $833 a month. If you’d rather match the goal to how you get paid, that’s $417 twice a month, $385 every two weeks, $192 a week, or about $27 a day. These are straight division, with no interest included, so they’re the amounts you actually have to move.

Pay rhythm	Times a year	You set aside
Monthly	12	~$833
Twice a month	24	~$417
Every two weeks	26	~$385
Weekly	52	~$192
Daily	365	~$27

Pick the row that matches your paycheque, not the one with the smallest number. The daily figure is useful for sizing the goal up in your head (about $27 is a takeout lunch and a coffee), but a daily transfer is a nuisance to run. Most people set one transfer for payday and leave it alone.

Is saving $10,000 in a year realistic?

For plenty of Canadian households, yes. For others it’s a stretch, and it’s worth knowing which one you are. Ten thousand dollars is roughly 9 percent of the $108,900 median after-tax income of a Canadian family, and about 24 percent of the $41,000 someone living alone takes home. Same goal, very different ask.

Those medians come from the Canadian Income Survey (opens in a new tab) (Statistics Canada, 2024 data). For a sense of how far above average the goal sits, Canadian households saved just 3.5 percent of their disposable income in the first quarter of 2026, the lowest rate since early 2024 (opens in a new tab). Saving $10,000 means putting away about 9 percent of a family’s take-home pay, well ahead of what most people manage, which is why it needs a plan and not just good intentions.

If $833 a month doesn’t fit, change the shape of the goal rather than dropping it. Stretching the timeline or trimming the target brings the monthly number down quickly.

Target	Over 12 months	Over 18 months	Over 24 months
$10,000	~$833 / mo	~$556 / mo	~$417 / mo
$5,000	~$417 / mo	~$278 / mo	~$208 / mo

A $5,000 goal you finish is worth more than a $10,000 goal you quit in March. To test a different target, timeline, or monthly amount, our savings goal calculator will run any combination you like.

Where does the $10,000 actually come from?

From three places: money that already arrives once a year, recurring spending you can cut, and income you add. Most people who reach $10,000 use all three. The average tax refund on its own was $2,282 this year, which covers nearly a quarter of the goal before you change anything about your monthly budget.

Your tax refund. The CRA issued more than 15 million refunds in the 2026 filing season, averaging $2,282 (opens in a new tab). It arrives in a lump, it was never in your monthly budget, and it’s the easiest $2,000 you’ll ever redirect. Move it the day it lands.
The restaurant line. The average Canadian household spent $3,351 on restaurant food in 2023, on top of $8,659 at grocery stores (Survey of Household Spending (opens in a new tab)). Halving that restaurant line frees about $1,675 a year and leaves your groceries alone.
The recurring three. Housing, transportation, and food are where the real dollars sit. Shopping your phone, internet, and insurance once a year is an afternoon of work that keeps paying every month afterward.
New income. A raise, a side gig, a loan you finish paying off. Send all of it to the goal, because your budget already works without it.

Put those together and the goal changes character. Send the $2,282 refund straight into the fund and halve your restaurant spending for another $1,675, and you’re at $3,957 without having touched your monthly budget. The remaining $6,043 comes to roughly $500 a month, which is a very different proposition from $833.

Where should you keep it?

In a high-interest savings account (HISA) at your own bank, kept away from your chequing account so it isn’t spendable by accident. Ongoing rates at the online banks run about 2.5 to 2.75 percent as of July 2026. Promotional rates above 4 percent come around regularly, but they expire after a few months and then fall to almost nothing.

There’s a Canadian wrinkle worth planning for on a goal this size. TFSA contribution room for 2026 is $7,000 a year. If you’re carrying unused room from previous years, as many Canadians are, the whole $10,000 fits with space to spare. If you’re working with this year’s room alone, the last $3,000 needs another home: a plain non-registered savings account, or an FHSA if the money is going toward a first home. Our guide to saving money in Canada sets out which account suits which goal.

The interest is a small part of this. At 2.75 percent, a balance that starts at zero and climbs by $833 a month earns roughly $125 over the year, because the full $10,000 is only in the account at the very end. Take it, and shop for a decent rate, but it won’t change what you have to set aside each month. For current rates and where the catches are, see our roundup of the best high-interest savings accounts in Canada.

How do you make it automatic?

Set an automatic transfer for the day you’re paid, so the money leaves before it’s available to spend. That’s the whole habit. Everything else here is arithmetic, and the transfer is what makes the arithmetic happen twelve times without you having to decide twelve times.

Sync it to your pay cycle. Two transfers of $385 land more softly than one of $833, and they go out before the money starts to feel like yours.
Raise it whenever your income rises. A raise, a bonus, a loan you finish paying off. Add that amount to the transfer the same week, while your budget still works without it.
Route the one-offs. Tax refund, work bonus, rebates, gift money. On a $10,000 goal, those are what let you get away with $500 a month instead of $833.
Check in quarterly, not weekly. At $833 a month you should be near $2,500 by the end of month three. If you’re behind, that’s the moment to adjust the target or the timeline.

How Lodavo makes saving $10,000 more rewarding

A year is a long time to keep a transfer running. Month seven is where these goals tend to fall apart: the novelty has worn off, the finish line is still far away, and nothing has happened to reward the six months you’ve already put in.

Lodavo is Canada’s first prize-linked savings app. It’s free, it works with the bank you already use through Plaid (opens in a new tab), which connects over 99 percent of Canadian deposit accounts, and it rewards you for saving with free tickets in a weekly cash draw. The more you put toward the $10,000, the more chances you get.

The top prize in that draw happens to be $10,000, the entire goal in a single week. Treat it as the long shot it is. The $833 a month is still the plan, and the tickets are free on top of it. Every week a guaranteed prize of at least $100 goes to a user, past results are on the winning numbers page, and the provably fair page shows how each draw is verified.

The transfers still do the work. The draw gives you something to look forward to every week while they do.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.