u/HenFruitEater

I am a dentist, I have friends in software engineering, friends in farming etc.

Everyone in a job market wants to be making fantastic earnings, but not everyone does.

On my dentistry forums people say "I'd never tell my kids to do dental, I'd have them do software engineering or finance to make 500k with lot less debt"

But what they have not learned is that they earn great money as dentists because of the super hard filter of dental school and willingness to take on 200k in student loans. Once you are out, you are compensated well and have stable job.

For every software engineer making 500k at google, there's 20 dudes willing to take that job because they make much less. There's always decent chance you have to live through layoffs.

For every financial advisor making 500k, there's 30 dudes that tried for 5 years to build a book of business and then had to quit.

For every Finance guy at an investment bank earning 500k there's a bunch of finance guys that couldn't get an interview or couldn't handle the brutal low paid hours at the beginning of high finance.

Just remember, the market is always adjusting to be right. IF there's an amazing pay and stability, there's gonna be a huge rush of people to fill that until it's not such a slick opportunity.

I'd say pick your filter you can make it through. My dental school was very hard to get into, and then once I got in, there was 80 hour weeks for 4 years. Afterwards though? Great salary with limited competition. I had the competition FIRST and now can chill, some jobs have the tough pills to swallow mid career, or even during the entire career.

Has anyone ridden both? What did you prefer?

Kingsong has 18 inch wheel, Nosfet has 16. and both have suspension. Which one is "better" for hitting bumps?

Both have same battery capacity. Nosfet is 2000w motor but peaks at 4000, the KS is 2200W.

Both are 55lbs.

If someone said you could have only one, which one would you pick?

"we just crossed 1million, I feel nutin" is what people love to post.

I personally feel a huge difference as things grow.

My wife and I made a "fun" purchase that was about $2,000. I said, you can think of it as 2 days of work, or think of it as giving up 5.3 days of investment growth (7% assumption).

Mentally I love how I have a tailwind behind us now that our net worth is getting higher. I DO feel each milestone and feel extra comfortable with little expenses in life that in the past would have stressed me tf out.

I wear size large shirts, and medium pants.

The knee guards are either S/M or L/XL. BRUTAL to pick online.

I am 5-11 and 190 lbs. Can someone that's my size weigh in on what size fit them?

Basically the perfect helmet for me would be one that covers my face, but you could easily "see" my ears from the side. I never ride over 20mph.

Not willing to wear something like a ski/bike helmet because there's no face protection. I'd like to be able to hear people and wear pass through earbuds to call people but also hear more around me.

Is what I want even a thing?

Had a patient with the first name “Nigg@.” Last name was normal last name. Won’t say for HIPAA reasons. I kept calling him “Mr. Lastname” and he told me to use his first name. Idk if we got punked or not. No insurance or ID.
I was sweating bullets. Just weird. All white staff and this half black dude wants me to call him the n word as a name. Did one X-ray and referred out to OS.

Weird Friday.

Each social media has a "tilt" toward something. Instagram comments are all racist etc.

But with reddit, the general vibe seems to be people living in very 1st world conditions but are generally angry at the world. They view it as a very hostile and difficult place. Everything is stacked against them on any topic, and we should overthrow that system. I have no love for billionaires and mega corps, but the reason someone is struggling is not them. The American middle class is one of the top in the world, and keeps rising, but you would NEVER see that thought on here. In a world where people are doing fine statistically, and people are having kids at a normalish rate in the USA, reddit feels very different. Generally not doing well, not moving out (not that they need to), and hate the idea of parenthood that I see in the real world, it's just very overrepresented online on reddit.

My take is that reddit is very overrepresented with people on the struggle-bus.

Getting my pilots license, and the flight instructor said to find an online ground school. Do you guys have a favorite one? Is there a consensus "this one is the best and not expensive"

Reducing payment size below the interest rate will cause your loans to grow, even with regular payments.

I know that this is obvious to most, but I keep seeing posts on all corners of the internet saying stuff along the lines of "I have been paying $200 a month for 20 years and my loans are BIGGER now!" and then imply it's a crime that that's the case. "how can it be fair that I have paid 10k and made no progress?"

How does this blow peoples minds all over the internet???

Money is not free to loan out, the govt is paying for the interest by issuing bonds. Right now some dude is getting paid 5% to loan the government money for them to loan to you, a much riskier person than the USgovt.

The ONLY free lunch in student loans is PSLF, RAP and other forgiveness schemes. Otherwise, try to get off reduced payments as soon as you can and get out of this debt. It's gonna weigh your NW growth down hard until you dig out. Best of luck to you (us) all!

I’ve been investing for 5 years heavily. 50%+ savings rate straight into VXUS-VTI. Seen great returns.

Can’t help but feel like the music will stop soon.

I realize I should not even attempt to time the market, but man it feels wrong to buy every time I do.

The psychology has to be something about knowing I just bought this for 30% less in recent years and feel like I’m paying too much for stocks even though they aren’t overpriced.

Rant over. I’ll keep buying. Just feels bad.

Nowdays NPCs run cover for anybody that is lesser on the totem pole. Depending on the group you have lotta topics to not touch. Fatties are the one I'll touch. If someone fat hears me, they know deep down it's true, and it's something they can change anyways. We have fat melting drugs, buddy.

Can't say Tetard without 4 girls saying "WE DONT SAY THE R WORD" Can't have a racist thought, can't even hate the gays these days smh.

I get that to an extent, people are born what race they are, they are born what intellegence level or mental disability they have, gay is maybe born with them, but sounds up for debate for you Tren blasters.

I get to keep one thing to rally against. Being fat is the fault of indivudual and their parents. I realize certain things can make it easier or harder to be lean, but nobody intrinsically needs to be 300lbs. None of your ancestors starting from 1960 back to the stone age hit that lardweight, it's not "in your genetics" to get there. Fatties just choose to eat too much. If you hate on fatties, people come out of the woodwork to defend them.. why? "It's big food's fault! It's poverty's fault!!" McDonalds compelles me to order a FULL meal with drink!

Everything can be explained by food deserts (which don't hardly exist), PCOS, "my metabolism slowed down!" (also you just decided to give up moving at age 19).

Try pointing out that SNAP benefits shouldn't cover soft drinks and watch people jump down your throat about "everyone deserves a treat." EVEN NPR the right wing newsource says over 10% of benefits are straight spent on SODA. how much of the cart is also pure junk?

Idk what excuse people have for being fat, it's not good enough. it's a choice. If you are working 4 jobs and feeding 4 kids as single mom, you still don't have to feed them poptarts and mcdonalds past a calorie maintenance.

If you are fat, quit it. Idk if you need to blast ozempic idgaf. You are hurting yourself and putting cracks in my sidewalks.

L 7.1 G idk

Have you seen colleagues with huge shovels be taken down by these? I’m not saying all are equally bad, but I sure do hate them all.
Syndicated RE isn’t always bad, but it’s opaque, full of fees, and illiquid and I’ve been burnt by it. Kinda like whole life (at least I’ve never bought that)

NWM nonstop crawl up my backside. Not sure where they come from. Half the time they don’t even claim NWM. They’ll say “we’re freedom wealthy XYZ” and I’ll ask, you’re Northwestern mutual, right?” And then boom yes they are.

Ya know how I knew? Because you’re begging for a meeting. The 10 financial advisors I drove past on the drive to work never call my front desk asking for an hour with doc. Just NWM.

Any other things you’d add to the list to watch out for?

Sometimes it seems like there's many different frames around the same Moster 185 engine. What frame is the value that has that engine?

Sounds jank to offer a barter, maybe it is, but I always think it's harder for me to spend my money than it is to trade for something when that money should be going toward my student loans lol.

I'm a younger dentist and I'd be glad to trade my skills at a discount to have someone bring me a paramotor.

Perks for you: I'll give you $1.50 in dental work for $1.00 paramotor value.

If the value of your used paramotor is 6000 for instance, I will give you 9000 in dental work. I can also just and pay the other portion in cash if it's not an even split. This roughly will break even because I have about a 35% profit margin at my office.

Perks for me: you end up delivering me a paramotor instead of me driving to see it, I get to feel like I worked off my paramotor. I don't want to dox myself, but I am closest to Minneapolis MN.

Ideal would be me getting low hour Moster 185. Ideal for you would be getting 2-3 dental implants or invisalign for a huge discount.

Everytime poverty and fatness are related in a disucssion, people come out of the woodwork to say how it's 100% not their fault.

It's always that they HAVE to eat cheap and unhealthy food.

Time is so precious, they HAVE to order a meal at mcdonalds.

Maybe those factors explain some of it, but somehow medical residends and students I went to school with were broke and had no time, but basically everyone was fit? WEIRD.

If 99% of the correlation to fatness and poverty could be explained by poor choices (due to education and what they're exposed to) and lack ambition imo. But everyone focuses on the 1% chance the link for fatness and poverty is the price of dr pepper too cheap to choose milk and water.

I grew up in a lower class family, we just ate a TON of eggs and rice. Nobody ever ran the math and found poptarts and coke to be the cheapest way to feed a family. Can easily eat decent macros on a budget.

I have an Apple iPhone 14 Pro. The battery health is down to 78%.

I see there’s a lot of different brands. So even offer a larger capacity. I don’t know what to believe.

I do not want to pay for an apple brand one for way more. I just wanna get another year of life out of this thing. I like replacing it myself.

Does that not notification about the third-party battery always show up? Or just when you first start up the phone?

Is there a better brand for the batteries?

I'm a 31-year-old dentist and owner for last 5 years. My much younger brother is interested in dental school, and I wrote this up as a roadmap for what I believe is the most efficient way to be a dentist. This is based on MY experience and what I did and wish I did.

I am genuinely interested in finances and investing, and love "The Money Guys" Financial order of operations for optimal money allocations for the general population; HOWEVER, it's not the same for us dentists; we have more options than the avg person and more ability to strategize if we'd like to. There's things we should do differently than normal advice.

I am going to start in high school and optimize to owning now. I say this as someone who had zero financial help or any family in dentistry to offer advice when I was young.

Dear brother here is my ideal path for me, lets find what is best for you

1. Get into state school and get degree that you'd be happy to work in if you don't end up being a dentist. Biology is putting all eggs in medicine basket for instance. Ideally graduate in 3 years, the financial value of an extra year of earnings and compounding is massive. (I got my MechE degree in 3 years). Once you apply and are waiting to get in, use your last year to take the hardest dental school classes. Gross anatomy, biochem, and histology was brutal for people in my DS, I wish I had taken those as my senior year undergrad classes. Year one of dental school would have been a breeze (just trust me on this). Compound interest matters so much in life, please don't go into 100k debt for undergrad at a private school.

2. Get into a state school for dental school if possible. Take massive lifestyle cuts to avoid dipping into higher interest loans. Cheap apartment in walking distance to school, cheap but healthy Aldis. Do "ride alongs" on older D4s and DDS graduates as they negotiate associateship agreements and purchase practices. HAVE AS MUCH KNOWLEDGE ON PRACTICE PURCHASES AS POSSIBLE. Not because you will understand it all, but it will calibrate you to what a fair deal is, what a healthy practice is, red flags, what to look for in demographics, insurance splits, DR/Hyg production etc. You need to be able to not get bamboozled by a broker putting lipstick on a pig of a practice. I did this for probably 5 older dentists and students while in dental school. I'd spend hours pouring over the financials AND doing demographics on how much it could grow realistically.

3. Get an associate job at the busiest practice you can find. I believe that a focus on % of collections, or mentorship matters, but nothing compares to just keeping you busy. Being busy at a 30% collections job is way better than sitting on your hands or doing hyg but getting paid 33%.

Most associateships fail because some owners cannot keep your schedule full. I joined a slammed 6 doctor office where 2 owners were pregnant. It's easy to share patients when you are only adding 16% "new capacity" to an office. Back in 2021 I made about 18k a month for a paycheck. Banks need to see that you can produce enough to at least replace the production of the office you intend to buy. Banks do not understand that you are fast with your hands but have a half filled schedule. You won't be able to buy a practice that has a doc doing 80k a month in production if you only produce 50k. Go to office where you can have full schedule.

3.5: RENT your living situation still, and keep it cheap. DO NOT buy house, do not buy newer car. DO NOT keep your opportunities limited by being tied to a house, and do not spend money on a down payment. YOU NEED TO BE SITTING ON cash for a practice purchase. Don't pay extra down on your student loans. I remember an older doc telling me "my associate bought way too much house, and now a car too? He never will leave this office, he can't afford to."

I had 90k cash in checking account by the time I purchased my office at 8 months post grad (this was barely enough for the bank I used)

4. Refinance student loans if favorable in your era: I refinanced from 6.2 -> 4.3% (11 year loan terms). You can only refinance for better terms when you have good income. Interest rates are all based on the fed, so this advice is only applicable to certain situations.

5. Purchase practice: I did this at 8 months post grad. Ideal is prob 2 years.

DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE!!! Time spent on bad deals you say "no" to is still time well spent.

I found a solo doc practice that was struggling with a "hostile" temp associate that was paid daily, not by production. he only did fillings and crowns. He referred out EVERY extraction, EVERY child, every RCT, EVERY ortho, EVERY implant to specialists.

The office I bought was collecting $800k, I paid $415k for the business (discount was from associate threatening to open across the street to every potential buyer lol, he didn't). and bought building for $475k.

I lived in basement of practice for a year just to build a warchest faster.

The worst practice to buy is from a Super GP imo, you pay a multiple of production that you maybe cannot even keep up with as a newer dentist. Buy a practice that is busy with a conservative treatment planning, bread and butter office. You can step into that day one, and boost things just by adding back in RCTs and extractions, etc.

6. Cut overhead HARD. There is SO much overhead to be cut in most offices without any noticeable effects on patient care or staff. Sometimes autopilot payments get out of hand because the owner doc set and forgot 30 years ago. Here's some examples: Telephone/internet was 750 a month (now 220), renting a printer for 300 a month, cleaning ladies 2x a week, snow removal for 5k a winter, dental intelligence software $$$$ (no ROI imo), Paying through the NOSE for Patterson or Henery shein products, yearly dosometers (that were never worn), he had crazy insurance (he was getting hosed). Horrific 401k fees. Uncomforable cuts I didn't have to do is cutting overpaid staff. But be on lookout for offices where front desk is making 90k and plan on how to handle it, it happens.

7. Cash flow is good? War chest is full? Max out your tax-advantaged investment accounts. Backdoor Roth, HSA, 401k. Please don't start out life with financial advisor. I use Fidelity, and invest in VTI/VXUS low cost index funds only. I use Vestwell 401k for my office, just make sure to find something that has LOW FEES. Fee drag ruins your long term returns.

8. Get training on implants and invisalign if that is a goal for you. It's CE that has a great ROI. The stock market still cannot beat out returns you get on adding implants into office.

9. Only at this point, consider buying a house. Buy as modestly as possible. Houses are NOT investments, look up the "5% rule on renting vs buying." Owning a house is a net worth drag. Example: Buying house for 1mil is same as renting same house for 50k a year (this is assuming normal taxes, appreciation, opportunity cost, maintenance etc).

I could not get a bank to loan me money because I was at around 1.2m in loans, I bought a 900 sf fixer upper for 135k cash and fixed it myself with my wife. It's worth 300k now. If you do this, buy a "bad house" in nice neighborhood and fix it to be in line with the others.

10. Pay down any debt that is over 4.5% (this is my personal cutoff).

11. Invest into brokerage (this is the least tax-advantaged).

12. Get way ahead for a few years, and then life is your oyster at a young age! NOW get that car, plane or house you want!

Footnotes: I personally have gone from "I WANT TO PAY OFF DEBTS SUPER FAST" to "I want my investments and cash to be bigger than my debts fast"

I started with -200k net worth in 2021 with student loans (I know this is low, I had full ride undergrad scholarships and very cheap dental school+scholarships).

Purchased practice in 2022 which does not affect net worth (added 1m in assets and 1m in debt).

At first I super-aggressively paid down my debt (wish I could go back and not do that).

now in 2026 my total debt load is 640k. The practice and building are half paid off, and produciton and profits are much higher than when I purchased them.

I have $1.7m in my investment accounts. NW is around $2.2 if we assume zero growth in practice or house value, $2.8m if we conservatively price practice and house appreciation. I make 620k profit a year in a normal 1.3m production office (I have good OH).

We are by no means earning what OMFS, Plastic surgeons, or orthopedic surgeons are capable of making... but the 4-6 year headstart is huge if you take advantage of it. My orthopedic surgeon buddy is also 31 and finishing his fellowship. He will earn 800k at his job, but it'll be hard to overcome this 2.2-2.8m headstart in NW.

Extra advice:

Keep advisor meathooks off of you: Every financial advisor will descend on you in school and as new grad. I get called by a new financial advisor 12 times a year. Please read white coat investor. Please do not buy IUL or whole life insurance or invest with the Northwestern mutual bros. I honeslty think nobody should even get an advisor till MAYBE late in life when there's some planning that is complicated. Socking away tons into index funds is not hard.

Marry right: Spouse is huge. Mine is very on board with living frugally to get ahead. Spouse that puts pressure to live like a dentist is going to set you back years on owning. Ideally rent, drive a mid car and get into good ownership as early as reasonable.

Avoid real estate syndications: Dentists and docs are prime targets to buy real estate syndications. I can expand on this if people want, but the moral of story is you will likely underperform the market by trying to be special.

Be very careful who you hire as dental consultants: Most of my classmates that have used consultants to buy a practice or to grow a practice, or train staff have said it's a huge waste of money. Some are insanely expensive. I'm not going to say they all are scams, but I do think most are. Imo, your lawyer, banker and CPA know tons and you can rely on them a lot, and mentor dentists. You don't need an expert to tell you everything to do, nobody will be as invested in your sucess as you.

Best of luck! Let me know if you have any questions! I think dentistry is GREAT. Just delayed gratification hits us more than others. Make sure you are okay with that delay to get ahead.

Hello all. I hope you are doing well and that the student loans are not too overwhelming.

I have seen a few people say that they will be taking classes as lifelong learners to avoid payments.

For those of you to have that plan, do you plan to take classes nonstop through your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s? Is there every time you can stop. 70s?

I totally understand taking classes to avoid the payments, I’m just curious what the end goal is. Or if it’s just for some brief relief for a year or two.

Heard the "time ends up being your most valuable resource" which I agree with, and then every post like that ends up being "pay for a cleaning lady" "I pay for landscaping" I pay for a nanny"

I think there's quite a bit of other low hanging fruit that we all leave on the table.

The richest guy in my town is a 55 year old fella. He has to commute 40 mins to work every day, he has to pick is underwear off the ground, he has to load and unload the dishwasher, he has to take the dog out to poop every morning.

1. Pick a location that is good for commuting to work, and to your kid's stuff. 60 mins a day of driving to work and back, to gym and back, and to kids activities adds up. I think a short commute is worth a TON. I live 5 minutes from my dental office. I walk many days and pop home for lunch even if I only have 30 mins.

2. Smaller house and property = more free time. Obviously get stuff you care about, maybe a bigger lawn or garage would make you happier, but I think buying a 5000sf house just because you are wealthy for it is buying more upkeep.

More outside the box stuff - I'm curious on what you guys would add

3. Tesla autopilot - Still the same time spent in car, but way more passive

4. 2 dishwashers. my wife hates this idea. Basically fill one, and use out of the other until you run the dirty one, and then finish unloading the clean one. This would make it so you never have dirty plates out ever, and could potentially keep you from touching dishes twice to unload and then again to set table.

5. Fast mower - maybe you have 0.5 acres and push mow it all like a normal person, but a zippy little stand on mower could make that super fast. I have a triple lot and it used to take me 45 mins, now it's 15 at most. I don't want to hire that out because it's fun.

6. Meal prepping? Instead of a cook

7. Own less stuff. My wife and I have downsized junk. if we don't love something we give it away even if it's nice.

8. Robot vacuums. If ours ever stops I can tell the next day because I am so used to never seeing a crumb or hair anywhere on the floor.

9?? Hit me with some ideas that do or dont cost money.

Can someone explain how Real estate can be so much more tax beneficial to someone who's making a lot of income? OR is it not actually better?

From what I can tell, acclerated depreciation, taking passive losses to offest passive income, rolling over your gains from one property into a bigger property is not really the same as not paying taxes, it's just kicking the can down the road in my mind. The only "loophole" where taxes are deleted are the step up basis if you carry these gains till you are dead.

Can someone explain to me if I am missing something?

Assuming that stocks and real estate are both returing the exact same rate, and both are 100% passive and same risk (i am not saying that they are), how does real estate make someone pay less taxes?