Before We Talked About Retiring at 47, She Asked Me This
My financial advisor sent me a risk questionnaire before our first session. Walking through my actual answers — and what I learned about myself.
I’ll be honest — even filling out this questionnaire made me feel a little confused and a little silly.
I’m a software engineer. I’ve read The Simple Path to Wealth. I have a Roth IRA, a solid emergency fund, and a spreadsheet I’m maybe too proud of. And yet when my financial advisor Shannon sent over this risk assessment before our first real session, I found myself second-guessing almost every answer.
Which is kind of the point of this blog. If I feel this way, I’m guessing a lot of you do too.
So let’s walk through it together — my actual answers, what I was confused about, and what I learned along the way.
What Is a Risk Questionnaire, Actually?
Before diving in, it helps to know what this thing is trying to do.
It’s not a test you pass or fail. It’s trying to figure out two distinct things about you:
Your capacity for risk — objectively, how much volatility can your financial life actually absorb? Do you have an emergency fund? A stable income? Time before you need the money?
Your tolerance for risk — psychologically, how do you behave when markets tank? Do you panic-sell? Lose sleep? Or do you shrug and keep contributing?
These two things often don’t match. Someone might have a 20-year runway and intellectually know they should be aggressive — but emotionally bail every time the market drops 10%. A good advisor needs to calibrate your portfolio to both realities, not just the spreadsheet version of you.
With that framing, here’s how I answered each question and what I was actually thinking.
The Questions
1. How soon do you plan to need the money you invest?
My answer: 10+ years
I’m 36 and targeting retirement at 47. That’s about 11 years away, which puts me just into the 10+ years bucket. Straightforward enough — though I’ll admit I almost second-guessed myself wondering if I should say 6-10 years to be conservative.
The longer your timeline, the more risk you can theoretically absorb. Markets go up and down, but over 10+ years they’ve historically recovered. So this answer is basically saying: I have time, don’t be too cautious with my money yet.
2. Once you need the invested funds, you plan to withdraw over…?
My answer: 20+ years
This is where it gets interesting for anyone on a FIRE path.
If I retire at 47, I could easily have a 40-50 year retirement ahead of me. That’s not a typo. So while my accumulation window is relatively short, my withdrawal window is enormous.
This is something traditional retirement planning kind of misses. The conventional wisdom — get more conservative as you approach retirement, shift into bonds, slow things down — was designed for someone retiring at 65 with maybe a 20-25 year runway ahead of them.
Retiring at 47 is a completely different math problem. If I get too conservative too early, inflation quietly erodes my purchasing power over four decades. My money needs to keep growing even while I’m withdrawing from it.
I found this genuinely clarifying to think about. Worth a whole separate post honestly.
3. Have you ever invested in a mutual fund or ETF based solely on a brief conversation with a friend, co-worker, or relative?
My answer: Once
Okay so this question is designed to catch impulsive investors — the ones who YOLO into something because their brother-in-law swore by it at Thanksgiving.
My situation is a bit of a funny edge case. I invest heavily in VTSAX — a Vanguard total stock market index fund — because I read The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins and it completely changed how I think about investing. So technically a book recommendation influenced my decision.
But the spirit of what this question is measuring is impulsivity and susceptibility to hype. I didn’t panic-buy a hot tip. I read a whole book, understood the philosophy, and made a deliberate choice. So I answered once but with a grain of salt.
The bigger lesson here: walking into an advisor’s office with an investment philosophy already formed completely changes the conversation. I wasn’t a blank slate for Shannon to fill in. I had a framework. That’s worth something.
4. During market declines, do you tend to sell portions of your riskier assets and invest in safer assets?
My answer: Never
This one I felt confident about. I’ve been through some scary market moments and I’ve never panic-sold. Not in 2020, not during other drops.
Part of that is temperament. Part of it is having internalized a core idea from Simple Path to Wealth — when markets drop, you don’t just do something, you stand there. Volatility is the price of admission for long-term returns. Selling during a dip locks in your losses and usually means you miss the recovery.
Answering never here is a meaningful signal to an advisor. It tells them you’re disciplined enough to hold an aggressive portfolio without sabotaging yourself when things get rough. That likely justifies keeping a higher allocation in stocks — which directly affects whether an early retirement target is achievable.
5. If you experienced a significant loss of income, how long could you sustain yourself on cash or short-term reserves before needing to access investment funds?
My answer: 9+ months
This is the emergency fund question in disguise.
The conventional wisdom is to have 3-6 months of expenses in cash. I’m comfortably past that, which feels good to say out loud. Having 9+ months of runway means that if I lost my job tomorrow, I wouldn’t be forced to sell investments at a bad time just to pay rent.
This matters more than most people realize. A lot of people technically have long investment timelines but are one bad month away from needing to liquidate. That hidden fragility changes everything about what an advisor should recommend.
6. Which of the following financial resources do you have?
(Cash emergency fund, CD, HSA, Roth IRA, dual income household, potential familial support)
My answer: All except a CD
I initially read this as “pick one” and answered just dual income household. Then I reread it and realized it’s asking which ones you have — plural.
Once I actually counted: cash emergency fund ✓, HSA ✓, Roth IRA ✓, dual income household ✓, and potential familial support if things got truly dire ✓. The only one I don’t have is a CD, which is a certificate of deposit — a low-risk savings tool that frankly doesn’t fit my investment philosophy anyway.
The lesson here: read the question carefully. I almost undersold my own financial resilience by misreading it.
7. How stable are your current and expected future income sources?
My answer: Somewhat stable
This is where I had to be honest with myself.
On paper, my situation looks stable. I work at a well-funded company, earn a good salary, and have a partner who also works. Objectively that’s stable or maybe even very stable.
But I’m a software engineer in 2025, and I’m watching AI get better at my job every month. I have real anxiety about automation making parts of my role redundant. That psychological experience of instability is valid even if the spreadsheet says otherwise.
I went with somewhat stable because it’s the honest answer — and honesty with your advisor matters more than making your situation look rosier than it feels.
8. What do you think is the minimum timeframe for an investment to be considered long-term?
My answer: 10+ years
Consistent with everything else. I think of investing as a decades-long game, not a years-long one. Short-term market noise is just noise. The signal is in the long arc.
What My Answers Say, Collectively
Looking at this as a whole picture: I’m a disciplined, long-horizon investor with solid financial cushion and no history of panic-selling. I have a clear investment philosophy already, a long withdrawal window ahead of me, and genuine income stability even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
That profile likely justifies an aggressive allocation — heavy in stocks, light in bonds — which is exactly what Shannon and I landed on. And that allocation is a big reason why 47 is even a number worth talking about.
The Thing Nobody Tells You
Most people fill out a questionnaire like this on autopilot — clicking through without really thinking about what each question is actually asking or what it’s trying to learn about them.
I almost did the same. But slowing down and actually sitting with each answer taught me something real about my own financial situation and how I think about risk. That clarity is worth more than any single investment decision.
If you’re going to work with a financial advisor — or even if you’re going it alone — understanding what your risk profile actually is, and why, is one of the most useful things you can do.
It’s not silly to feel confused by this stuff. It’s just the beginning of figuring it out.
This is the first post from Slow Burn Finance — a place for people who are serious about financial freedom but done with the hustle culture that usually comes with it. I’m building this in public, learning as I go, and writing about it honestly. Welcome.