Future of dentistry (in terms of demand and salary)?

[P7898]

Currently I would try to put in like 15k into an index fund quarterly, while leaving the rest in a HYSA until the next deposit. And say after your initial deposit there's a 20% dip within a month. I would use the next deposit to buy that dip and hold off on the scheduled buy.

That’s too fancy. Time in the market is better than timing the market all data every created by man shows this. Why do you ask? Well you probably know - no one knows when the market will dip and if it ever dips. In theory that idea sounds nice but practicality of it is basically gambling. If the market doesn’t go down for 5 years I just got 10% in the S&P vs your 4%. Then every if it dips I am still buying in because I am DCA.

DCA into S&P index fund and forget about it.

Only holds cash positions for 6 months of emergency savings, 2 months of actual savings (for living), and if you’re saving for a house (if you need it in 1-3 years) in high yield savings. Citi Bank and Discover all have 4%.

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[chipskylark13]

That’s too fancy. Time in the market is better than timing the market all data every created by man shows this. Why do you ask? Well you probably know - no one knows when the market will dip and if it ever dips. In theory that idea sounds nice but practicality of it is basically gambling. If the market doesn’t go down for 5 years I just got 10% in the S&P vs your 4%. Then every if it dips I am still buying in because I am DCA.

DCA into S&P index fund and forget about it.

Only holds cash positions for 6 months of emergency savings, 2 months of actual savings (for living), and if you’re saving for a house (if you need it in 1-3 years) in high yield savings. Citi Bank and Discover all have 4%.

It's not fancy when the money on the side is still pulling in 5%, the thing is if you only have an X amount you never want to dump X into the market at once. Now say you're pulling in a lot of money in every month, then it really doesn't matter bc you have cashflow but windfalls are a different thing.

 

[LFA20]

This is what I am struggling with right now... I have built up some cash that I don't foresee needing for many years and can dump all of them right now.. but I don't know how much I should put in and at what frequency. I am thinking just a few thousand dollars every 2 weeks or whenever I see red days..

 

[Molar Whisperer]

This is what I am struggling with right now... I have built up some cash that I don't foresee needing for many years and can dump all of them right now.. but I don't know how much I should put in and at what frequency. I am thinking just a few thousand dollars every 2 weeks or whenever I see red days..

I'm not a licensed financial guru to give advice so I'm sharing my portfolio. I'm already doing maxed DCA with the S&P500 at 0.09% expense pre-taxed. I locked down ~10% of my cash into CD (boring) at 5% for 12 months 3 mos ago. I have about 25% free cash to play the market. I already bought some 52 wk low Energy stocks with about 4.5% dividends. What I do is look at the 52 wk low and order at 10% dip. Intraday fluctations will eventually land me to that dip and all the stocks are automatically ordered. My other Energy stocks already gained over 100% since Covid. I'm a vulture in that I get excited when solid stocks go on sale because of war, recession, disasters, weather, Covid, etc. Few years ago, I was thinking of getting into rentals due to tax friendly passive income but I didn't want the stress of property maintenance and unforeseen nightmares and money pits (replacing the roof, remodels, etc). I don't ever listen to other people's stock picks...learned my lesson from listening to my dad and losing almost 100%.

 

[Thehighwind87]

Always split a large investment into 8, and invest quarterly into an index over a two year period! Regardless I think this country is addicted to free money (low interest) and once rates begin to come back down, we will see an explosion in asset prices similar to Canada ;( . Homes will never be 300-400k again in high quality of life areas. The new norm has been set. Like evil dentist stated money is worth less over time.

We will never see pre-covid prices, and so on and so on- unless we have a 2008 financial meltdown 2.0. But the fed will print and bail out everything to prevent that which will just drive prices higher. The key to all this is that fiat money is inherently inflationary- so you have to hedge. When there are crisises- the inflation will be driven up more as more printing will be issued.

That's really the jist of it- how you hedge- stocks/real estate/crypto is up to you.

And unfortunately throughout all this- dentistry is inherently deflationary. So not only do you have to eat inflation in the real world- you have to also eat deflation in your own practice.

The average person who didn't get a raise and inflation runs at 5%- took a 5% paycut. The average person who got a 3% adjusted raise- and inflation runs at 5% - takes a 2% paycut. You the owner took a 10% paycut through 5% real world inflation and 5% practice inflation.

Crazy to think people are still lining up to this profession in droves.

 

[Thehighwind87]

This is what I am struggling with right now... I have built up some cash that I don't foresee needing for many years and can dump all of them right now.. but I don't know how much I should put in and at what frequency. I am thinking just a few thousand dollars every 2 weeks or whenever I see red days..

My biggest regret was selling 4k shares of apple at 45. You can do the math on that loss. 500k missed opportunity cost- and that would be providing me a big fat dividend yield.

I'm sure there are bigger players out there that sold their amazon shares at 10$ or something. Regardless the market teaches you alot and as you get older you refine your risk tolerance and learn that time in the market beats timing the market.

 

[cloth_alert00]

U must become great at understanding people and communicating and You’ll make money in any field of dentistry. My first year out of AEGD in coastal California I made 250k on 4 days but I was getting ripped off and the owner and manager were stealing from me. I switched offices and did much better the second year and now am in the process of finding a practice for acquisition.
Live where u want to live and you’ll find ways to be successful. A lot of my classmates went “rural” and didn’t do AEGDs and signed massive contracts but I made more money than them after year 2. They went to Arkansas, Missouri and random places that they would never want to live because some DSO told them they could do 34% instead of 32%.
Also, Don’t get wowed by the numbers these companies offer. There’s always a catch or a reason. DSOs are pros at making money, so you’ll never get a good deal. Same goes with associateships at most associate driven private practices. get good at what you do and then go open or acquire an existing office.