I agree but you have to understand that virtually ALL dentists can go out there and make 250-300k. Maybe ~10% of computer science major make 250k+. Also, people in technology got scared whenever some idiot on CNBC mutter the word recession
I think this is the goal that most predents hope to achieve after dental school…..$1-5 million saved for retirement…having an upper middle class lifestyle….being the top 10-15% income earners. When I decided to pursue dentistry years ago, I didn’t expect to become a multi-millionaire either. I just hoped to have a stable career (and not getting laid off so easily like the engineers) and a comfortable lifestyle. To me, making $300/day (which was the average pay for a GP 20+ years ago) was a lot; that’s almost 4x more than what my dad made.
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If you can put away at least 15% (preferably 20%) of your income for retirement saving + pay off your student loan debt in 10 (or less) years + having a comfortable lifestyle with your 4day/wk income, then you don’t need to work harder than that. If you are still in debt (school loans, home loan, business loan etc), when you are in your mid 40s to early 50s, there must be something wrong with your work ethic or your spending habit. If you are not 100% debt free at this age, it’s not a good sign. Can’t work forever.
To get paid more, these guys also have to work harder, especially when they switch to a better paid job. They have to work harder to prove to their new bosses that they are worth $150k-250k/year. If they can’t, their boss will replace them with more capable people. These engineer guys have to work harder to get paid more….. why can’t we, dentists, do the same? Why can’t we work 5 days/wk like them?
Why pay your staff more when your office's production stays the same (or less due to insurance paycut)? Shouldn’t you try to find ways to reduce your overhead instead of increasing it? Can you fire some of your staff to save $$$ and work harder?
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The reason you are able to enjoy all of these in your early 40s is you had worked hard when you were younger. Unlike many of your dental classmates who took the easy route (they took the highly paid associate job…..instant positive cashfow... instant gratification), you took the financial risk to open an office….you took out business loan.....you took a loss at the beginning when your office didn’t have enough patients. Being in more debt helped force you to work harder. And now, you are far ahead of your classmates. If you didn’t go to dental school, you wouldn’t be in the position where you are at right now. It’s not luck….it’s your hard work.
Your parents are very lucky to have a good caring son like you. I am sure your parents' life is much better/more joyful when they have you (and your siblings) around, especially now when they are much older. It’s less lonely for them. I know you don't like having kids. Sure, you can hire a stranger/a nurse to take care of you in your old age but it’s not the same as when your own children are there for you….as when one of your child drives you to the emergency room and stays there with you. That’s your parents' reward (that they currently enjoy) for bringing you into this world....for working hard and making sacrifices to raise you into a good person.
Yes, you can still enjoy life while working hard. I'd rather work hard to earn good income so I can afford to drive nice cars in my 30s ....the type of cars that most young people in their 30s can't afford. I don't want to wait until I turn 60 to drive a flagship Mercedes Benz or BMW. It's nice to be able to switch to new car every 2-3 years.
Being 51, having a good health is also very important to me. I am glad that I can finally relax at this stage of my life. Those years of hard work have paid off. Many of my colleagues who are at my age still have debts to pay back. My cousin, who graduated the same year as me, still has a home mortgage to pay back. He's a MD anesthesiologist. I remember when my younger brother (who is 10 yrs younger than me) applied for med school, my cousin strongly opposed it and told my younger brother to become a dentist like me instead because he saw the nice lifestyle that I had.
Life is a series of trade-offs. You have to give up something in order to gain something.
Yeah doom and gloom has been ignoring this. That job security of dentistry is a big deal. My friends also had to work pretty hard to get to 6 figures, it's rare to just be given that type of job out of college. At least in their experience. And now many are back to zero. No one talks about the 100 hour weeks that can happen for months on end either.Tech Industry Layoffs Show No Signs Of Abating As Businesses Undo Overhiring
Tech layoffs this year are already three-fourths of the way toward the total number of employees laid off during all of 2022.
People think it's easy to make 250+k/year. There is a reason that ONLY 5% of working individuals earn that much. That statistics alone makes anyone who is making that kind of $$$ exceptional.
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Facing life’s challenges helps make you stronger. My kids have never gone through any adversity in life. They have never worked a low paid entry-level job while they are in school like you and me. I think it’ll be hard for them to become a successful business owner if they follow my footstep to become a dentist. I don’t think they’ll be willing to work the way that I did when I was a new grad orthodontist. That’s why I encourage my son to pursue medicine. He’ll have to work hard as a physician. He’ll have to follow the work schedule (late and weekend hours) that the hospital wants him to work. If he can’t get in, dentistry is his backup plan.
I don’t expect my children to take care of me the same way that my siblings and I take care of our parents. It’s different in America. I don’t want to be a burden to our kids. That’s why I’ve worked hard to save for my own retirement. I bought the burial site and pre-paid the burial service for my wife and me. I plan to live in the assisted living center when I can no longer take care of myself. Hopefully, my children and grand children will come to visit us on major Holidays. When I become very ill, I hope that my "physician" son will treat me or ask his specialist colleagues to treat me....less wait time.
I have also done the same for my parents but I only contribute 1/3 of the amount because my other 2 siblings help take care of the other 2/3. We live within 5-minute walk from my father-in-law’s house (it’s a guest house in the back of my brother-in-law’s house). My wife brings food to her dad 2 days/wk and her 3 siblings bring food the other days of the week.
Staff salaries are a huge % of your overhead. That’s where you need to cut, instead of increasing it. 59% is still too high. Opening only 4 days/wk means that your office is not at its maximum capacity….therefore, not all of your staff need to be there. Cut their hours....hire part time employees.
Let me repeat again. Inflation hurts everyone and not just the dentists. A starter home now costs more than 2x as much as it did 9-10 years ago. So it affects every first time home buyer, not just dentists. Everyone has to work harder in order to buy the same house that their parents bought years ago. Rents have also increased significantly. That’s why there is a high percentage of the millennial who move back to live with their parents after college. Most of the new grad dentists don’t have to do that. Many new grad dentists here have claimed that they make $200k working only 4 days a week.
I don't think waking up without a job is no problem. Even if you have a quick turnaround theres no guarantee on keeping the same schedule, commute, housing, or job stress.There's only so much you can reduce your overhead, and no- I already run barebones. My overhead is actually excellent. 59% give or take. But regardless, you can only reduce so much. I don't have a fish tank, no waiting room tv, no cable, no extraneous expenses like netflix for patients etc, lowest subscription costs (just enough to keep the practice running), no fancy equipment etc. But if the lab bill goes up, and the subscription costs go up, and the market wages go up, then so does everything else.
You can work as hard as you can, but eventually inflation creeps in and that 59% becomes 61% to 63% to 65%. Just a few years ago I was around 55% or less. Every year there is an increase, and I have to figure out ways to offset it.
These layoffs are a drop in the bucket.
Amazon: 1 million to 1.5 million during covid...and now they are laying off 18k.
Microsoft: From 163k, to 221k, laying off 10k.
In addition, if you actually look into it, majority of this is middle managers, and lower roles- not your big tech guys. Yes there are developers getting laid off- but they are getting hired elsewhere. Big tech basically sucked up all the talent during covid- and smaller firms got left with nothing- now with layoffs- these positions are getting filled.
Basically- the doom and scare of tech layoffs- if you read at face value- look scary- but if you dig deeper- you realize it's nothing compared to how much they over hired and the scarcity of workers in the other tech fields since all the big techs sucked up all the talent. They are getting jobs left and right:
Most laid-off workers today are quickly finding new jobs, survey shows
Losing your job hurts. But a tight labor market and low unemployment are cushioning the blow for many of those who get axed.
Plus they are getting raises and or not taking a payout from their previous job. As a dentist with a lot of techie friends- I know first hand that the field ain't doom and gloom. A lot are getting offers at banks, startups, manufacturing etc as those fields have been sucked dry of talent because big tech took all the them during the pandemic.
Don't worry- as a dentist- we will always have a job with declining income year over year. That's no problem, and I guess something in the grand scheme of things we should be thankful for.
Just curious.. how much is your after tax income per month? (after Medicare, SS, federal, state, health insurance)
Its not easy to get staff this day and age in GP office, decreased reimbursmsnets mean you see more pts to make up the difference, no one is going to work for you part time as an assistant, cut their hours and they move on to the next office or DSO. Only working 4 days actually is part of controlling OH, instead of string out the schedule over 5 days with gaps, consolidate in 4 days and less OH.
My thinking is if a dentist doesn’t work 5 days/wk, he’s not at his maximum earning potential. I think many of my successful dentist friends, who are mostly asians, have this similar way of thinking as well. We hate debts. We hate high overhead and being over-staffed. A dentist can be less efficient with fewer staff and works 5 days/wk, instead of 4. His production will be the same for working 5 days (instead of 4) but his net earning will be more because he has less assistants to pay. One can easily save $45-50k/year for every assistant he doesn’t need to hire…..$100k for not using a hygienist. So it doesn’t really matter if there is a shortage of assistants in area…you just don’t need them.
True. That’s why many of us, dentists, here in SoCal have to work more, see more patients to make up the difference. If we can’t keep our fees low and competitive and if we don't accept medicaid, the patients will go get tx at our competitor’s offices or at corp offices.
Aslo true. That’s why I can’t cut the hours of my 2 F/T employees (my manager and the back floor assistants) even though all 3 my offices are only opened 10 days/month. I have to find things for them to do to keep them busy….like tracing ceph films, insurance billings, calling patients, making ortho appliances, mopping the floor, checking on the suplies etc. I only hire P/T assistants for chair-side assisting and they only work on the days that we have patients. It’s easier to find these P/T assistants on the weekends because they usually F/T somewhere else on the weekdays....they just need to work a few days at my office to supplement their incomes.
If opening 4 days/wk helps control the overhead, that’s great….then the dentist still has one extra day in a week to work for someone else to increase his income….to maximize his earning potential to pay off debt faster, instead of sitting around doing nothing and complaining about the dental field. That’s what many owner dentists here in Socal do. They work part time at their own offices and work P/T at the same corp office where I work at.
What I have found is alot of offices are open 5 days and the schedule has huge holes, and you end up paying staff to sit around. In my office we condensed to 4 since last year and production has actually gone up, and staff get paid 35 hours.
Unfortunately, there are very few dental schools that charge below $350k. Most charge a lot more than that. Even at my state school, UCLA, the cost of attendance is very near (or slightly more) the $350k mark. The recent grads that claimed that they only owed $300k (or less) likely received some financial helps from their parents.
Agreed. That's not a smart business move if you open 5 days a week and have a lot of empty slots on the book....and pay the assistants for sitting around doing nothing. Open less days, see more patients per day, and work more efficiently are key. And if one needs to make more $$$, just use the extra days that the office is not opened to work somewhere else as an associate. That's what many of my dentist friends (and I as well) do.
So you actually cut the staff hours from the normal 40 hours to 35 hours. That's good. That's what I am talking about.
Yep, and they have the extra day to temp or what not.
Yeah, you can cut their hours just slightly so they won't get mad and leave you. Many of them actually enjoy having an extra day off to do somehing else.
In that case, medicine might be a better deal... even FM/IM docs these days can make 300-350k/yr without killing themselves.
Yeah, I think medicine is a slightly better option….less debt and higher salary. But it's just slightly better because before the doctor can earn that $300-350k amount, they have to do at least 3 years of low paid hard labor residency. The dentists can earn a low to mid 100k income righ after dental school. The dentists can own a practice but it’s not as easy as it was in the past due to the huge amount of debt the young grads owe. Another problem is most young dentists cannot work in a low cost low tech office like mine….they want to spend $500-600k (which to me, is a big waste of money) to build a modern office.
I take home $10k/month after tax (I live in a blue state with pretty high state income tax).
We’re already in manufacturing, real estate, freight, etc recession. The economy being in recession is usually announced retroactively.
If public payers and transfer payments exited the market inflation would go down. Demand would decrease.
I see your side of the coin too.
neither is anyone else.
My retirement will accelerate if another 2008/2009 happens.
Clearance sale for investments and large ticket items.
That’s what Dave Ramsey has recommended: pay off all debts first then build wealth (by investing in mutual funds + 401k + other forms of savings). When you have zero debt, your greatest asset is your income (your earning ability). I am a strong believer in this. I had done the debt snowball long before I heard about Dave Ramsey. I've enjoyed life (and work) because I’ve never faced any financial difficulty since graduation. I’ve enjoyed practicing low overhead dentistry + a stable associate job on the side. I only borrowed $75k to build my first office. I purchased a 2nd practice in 2009 and paid it in full because this low tech office wasn’t too expensive to acquire.
In order to invest you have to have money. You can’t invest when you have high amount of debt to pay back. For new grads that have student loan debts, working 4 days/wk will not give them any extra income to invest. Banks won’t loan the money to a broke person. You have to work hard to earn good income so you can prove to the banks that you can pay back the debts. To me, investing in a dental practice is a lot more profitable than any other forms of investments.
The problem for me was I didn’t know what stocks to buy…..I was (still am) clueless….to me, they are like gambling. I invested in rental properties instead. I took advantage of the low home prices during the 2008 recession. Thanks to the good stable dental income, I didn’t have any problem getting the banks to approve the loans. When I invested in these properties, I didn’t think the home prices would go up the way they have gone up in the last couple of years. I didn’t think these were good investments. My thinking was very simple….I put down 20% for each property, the tenants pay the mortgages and 30 years later, I’ll have 100% of the ownership. I couldn’t wait for 30 years so I paid all of them off early.
You finally said something nice about dentistry.👍
Everything is trending down. A college degree is no longer guarantee of a good life. It's not easy to make money nowadays. At least your kids won't be in debt like you if they choose to follow your footstep. You can provide for your kids more than what your parents had done for you.
