Your feelings aren’t the best investment strategy

I’ve seen this happen so many times.

Someone in their 20s or 30s starts investing, but because they’re scared of the stock market, they go straight for the most conservative investments — GICs, money market funds, cash-heavy portfolios — thinking they’re playing it safe.

But here’s what I need you to understand:

Your risk tolerance should not be based on how you feel about the market.

Because feelings can change, and that’s perfectly normal. Remember, fear is just a temporary state, and headlines may shift. It's also important to recognize that panic can be contagious.

What doesn’t change is your goals and your timeline.

If you want to invest wisely, you need to build your investment strategy based on three key factors:

One: Your Investment Horizon

This is how long you plan to leave your money invested before you need to access it.

For example:

If you’re investing for retirement and you’re 28, you have a 30–40 year horizon. You have time to ride the wave of market ups and downs. That time gives you the opportunity to take on more risk and more risk often means more growth.

The market isn’t linear. It dips. It recovers. But over long periods of time, it historically trends upward. So the longer your horizon, the more risk you can typically afford to take, because you have years to recover from volatility.

Playing it too safe with a long timeline often means your money grows way slower than it could and you end up needing to save more out of pocket to hit the same goal.

Two: Your Financial Goals

Not all goals require the same investment strategy.

If your goal is to build wealth, retire early, or create income from your investments in the future, you need to prioritize growth.

GICs and high-interest savings accounts are great for safety and stability, but they won’t deliver the kind of returns that actually move the needle on those big goals.

On the other hand, if your goal is short-term — like buying a house in the next year or two — then a conservative approach makes sense. You’re not trying to grow the money at that point, you’re trying to preserve it and avoid losses.

This is why knowing your specific goal matters. It guides how much risk you should take on.

Three: The Urgency of Your Goals

This is the one nobody really talks about, but it’s a game changer.

It’s not just about the goal, it’s about when you need the money and how flexible you can be.

If you’re investing to buy a home in 6 months, that goal is urgent and time-sensitive. A dip in the market could throw your whole timeline off. In that case, your investment strategy needs to prioritize safety.

But if you’re investing for something like a dream vacation, and you’re okay with it happening this year or next, you have flexibility. That flexibility means you can afford to wait out a market downturn if needed, which opens the door to slightly higher-risk investments with higher growth potential.

Your flexibility determines how much market movement you can stomach, not just emotionally, but practically.

The more honest you are about your timeline, your goals, and your flexibility, the easier it becomes to choose an investment strategy that works for YOU. Not your friend. Not the financial news. You.

Inside the Surplus Stack Society, I walk you through how to build a surplus, grow your investments, and build your investment portfolio based on your goals, timeline and urgency. You get access to my proproety Risk Score Calculator, that automatically calculates your risk tolerance based on your age, goals, investment horizon, urgency and portfolio size.

If you want a to grow yoour investments to 1X your annual income, this is where you need to be! 

Yours Truly,

Eduek 🦢