MtoM #237: Plastic Surgeon Hits Mid Career Milestones and Finance 101: The Debt Dilemma for Dentists

Summary

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White Coat Investor Podcast – Milestones to Millionaire #237

Title: Plastic Surgeon Hits Mid-Career Milestones and Finance 101: The Debt Dilemma for Dentists
Date: August 25, 2025
Host: Dr. Jim Dahle
Guest: Fred, Plastic Surgeon

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Episode Overview

This episode of the "White Coat Investor Podcast: Milestones to Millionaire" features Fred, a plastic surgeon at mid-career who has achieved substantial financial milestones—debt freedom, fully funding college savings for his children, and peace of mind about his financial future. The second segment dives into the pressing debt dilemma dentists face after graduation. The episode focuses on achieving financial security, lessons learned from family legacy, and practical advice for high-income professionals seeking balance between career aspirations and financial security.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Fred’s Career & Training Journey

• Background and Training ([02:05]):
  • Based in Colorado, Fred has been practicing over 20 years after completing nine years of surgical training, including plastic surgery, ENT, and oncology fellowship.
  • "It's about nine years of surgical training, so it adds up quickly." — Fred [02:34]
  • No regrets about the long training thanks to both a passion for education and strong family financial support.

Achieving Major Financial Milestones

• Paying Off Debt & College Savings ([03:14]–[04:42]):
  • Achieved debt freedom—mortgages and spouse’s educational loans paid off.
  • Fully funded his children’s college education, prioritizing similar opportunities he received.
  • Reached these goals about four years ago, leading to significant peace of mind.
  • "Once I hit those goals, it sort of gave me some freedom or at least peace of mind." — Fred [04:18]
• Work, Lifestyle, and Career Satisfaction ([04:42]–[05:26]):
  • Still maintains a full workload but enjoys flexibility; values routine and continues taking calls and working five days a week.
  • No plans for early retirement due to a genuine love for his specialty.

College Savings Strategy

• 529 Plans & Contributions ([05:31]–[06:39]):
  • Started automatic contributions to 529 plans as soon as he became an attending.
  • Family (particularly his father) contributed additional funds.
  • Targeted enough savings for private undergraduate and 1–2 years of graduate school—approximately $400,000–$500,000 per child.
  • "We have a lump sum of money now which can enable them really to go to any private school they want." — Fred [05:53]
• Overfunding Plans ([07:32]):
  • Any surplus to be rolled over for grandchildren, ensuring education remains a family legacy.

Debt Details & Payoff Timeline

• Fred’s Debt Background ([08:02]–[09:36]):
  • Fortunate not to have student loans due to parental support.
  • Debts included two mortgages and spouse’s educational loans.
  • Once all obligations were gone, peace of mind substantially increased.
• Mortgage Payoff Approach ([09:46]–[10:20]):
  • First house bought at age 37, paid off the house after about eight years.
  • Higher salaries over time enabled accelerated repayment.
  • Salary history: $175,000 starting (post two residencies), growing to ~$600,000 base, with bonuses varying by institution.

Saving and Spending Mindset

• Investment Practice ([11:22]–[12:09]):
  • Not particularly frugal but benefited from being debt-free at the start.
  • Began maxing out pre-tax accounts as an attending.
  • Followed the advice to save at least 20% of income.
  • "I began to roughly do about 20% starting when I became an attending." — Fred [11:54]
• Financial Independence Status ([12:09]–[12:50]):
  • Confident he could retire if necessary, supported by disability insurance, pension, and savings, but might need to modestly adjust lifestyle.

Influence of Family and Role Models

• Upbringing & Values ([13:04]–[14:18]):
  • Father: Navy commander and real estate agent, worked into his 80s, modeled the value of engaging work.
  • Grandmother: Early female graduate from Penn, public school teacher, championed the value of education.
  • "If you find something you love, your work is not a big deal." — Fred [13:26]
  • Family instilled prioritizing education and helping others.

Writing and Publishing a Book

• Motivation & Lessons Learned ([14:18]–[16:45]):
  • Wrote “Reflections of a Microvascular Plastic Surgeon: Reconstructing Shattered Lives” in the wake of professional demoralization during COVID.
  • Book intended to inspire both doctors and patients by sharing patient stories and the impact of reconstructive surgery.
  • Financially, writing is not lucrative: "If a book is $40, you get $4... You do it to basically inspire people." — Fred [16:22]

Advice for Young Physicians

• Fred’s Guidance ([17:01]–[17:45]):
  • Careers and money are a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Prioritize security and a structured plan.
  • Engage in activities unrelated to medicine—graduate courses, the arts, travels—to enrich perspective and sustain career fulfillment.
  • "People should take time off to do things that are going to enhance their ability to appreciate their work as a doctor." — Fred [17:20]

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Segment 2: Finance 101 – The Debt Dilemma for Dentists

The Scale of the Problem ([18:10]–[19:18])

• New dental grads routinely face $300,000–$500,000 of educational debt, with some specialists owing $800,000–$1.1 million.
• Many dental residencies are unpaid; debt continues to grow with interest and possibly tuition for postgrad training.
• "If you pay for your undergraduate and...your ortho residency and you pay for it all with debt, it's not unusual to be in the high six figures or even seven figures just with your student loans." — Jim Dahle [18:52]

Career Path Options Post-Graduation ([19:20]–[21:05])

• New dentists must choose between working as relatively low-paid associates or pursuing practice ownership.
• Associate roles often pay $140,000–$200,000, which may not suffice to manage large student loans and afford a house.
• Practice ownership can increase income but usually requires another $500,000–$1,000,000 in loans.
• The "triple onslaught" of student loan, mortgage, and practice debt requires strategic financial planning and frugal living.

Path Forward & Key Takeaways ([21:10]–[22:50])

• Buying a practice makes sense if it boosts income and is a well-researched opportunity; this often means taking on additional business risk.
• Newly minted dentists should expect to “live like a resident” for several years post-training, prioritizing debt reduction and lifestyle restraint.
• "[You have] the equivalent of a 'live like a resident' period that's going to last for something, you know, close to five years, if not maybe even a little bit more, and then grow into that income as slowly as you can." — Jim Dahle [22:36]
• Long-term reward is stability and enjoying the fruits of a higher income once debts are under control.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Education and Debt
  "If I could spend more [time in training], I would. I think becoming educated and trained is quite a gift." — Fred [02:41]
• On Family Legacy
  "I'll pay for whatever you want to do. So I've taken that lesson to my children." — Fred [07:09]
• On Writing and Fulfillment
  "There's no money in book selling. You do it... to hopefully offer some sort of life lesson." — Fred [16:22]
• On Sustaining Career Enjoyment "If you find something you love, your work is not a big deal." — Fred [13:26]
• On the Long Game "Career and money are not sprints, they're marathons." — Fred [17:01]
• On Dentist Debt Dilemma
  "You’re not going to pay that $600,000 mortgage and those $500,000 in student loans making $140,000 as an associate. You’ve got to figure out a way to get your income up." — Jim Dahle [22:19]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Fred's Background / Training — [02:00]–[02:34]
• Family Support and No Regrets — [02:37]–[03:14]
• Reaching Financial Security and College/Funding Debt-Free Life — [03:43]–[05:26]
• 529 College Fund Planning — [05:31]–[06:39]
• Impact of Family and Role Models — [13:04]–[14:18]
• Book Writing Motivations & Financial Realities — [14:18]–[16:45]
• Advice to Younger Physicians — [17:01]–[17:45]
• Jim Dahle: The Dentist Debt Dilemma — [18:10]–[22:50]

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Summary

Fred’s story embodies a blend of privilege, planning, and perspective—using family support and wise financial strategy to create opportunities for future generations, maintain debt freedom, and pursue meaningful work and personal projects (like writing a book). Dr. Dahle’s segment on dental debt delivers a realistic, practical roadmap for new dentists facing daunting liabilities, underscoring the need for business acumen, frugality, and patience.

The episode offers inspiration for medical professionals: prioritize financial goals early, leverage family and legacy, structure sound plans for debt reduction, and embrace work-life fulfillment as a marathon—engage beyond clinical practice to sustain joy in medicine and finance.

Transcript

[Jeff Rose]

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast, Milestones to Millionaire. Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

[Jim Dahle]

This is Milestones to millionaire podcast number 237, plastic surgeon hits mid career Milestones. This podcast is sponsored by Bob Bayani at Protuity. He's an independent provider of disability insurance planning solutions to the medical community in every state and a longtime White Coat Investor sponsor. He specializes in working with residents and fellows early in their careers to set up sound financial and insurance strategies. If you need to review your disability insurance coverage or to get this critical insurance in place, contact [e-mail] Protuity. You can also email infoorotuity.com or just pick up your phone and call 973-771-9100. All right, welcome back to the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. This is the podcast. It's all about you and your milestones. We want to celebrate with you. You can apply to come on the [e-mail] Milestones. By the way, we're having a special sale on all of our online courses just for podcast listeners is 20% off through the 29th of this month. Just a few more days. Use the code podcast20 to get 20% off all of our courses. Now all of them are sold with with 100% money back one week, no questions asked, guaranteed. As long as you've watched less than 25% of the course, we'll give you your money back so there's no risk to you. And now you can get it for 20% off. All right, we've got a great interview today. I hope you enjoy it. We don't get a lot of mid career kind of milestones, so this is fun to have one stick around. Afterward, we're going to talk a little bit about the debt dilemma that a lot of dentists face when they come out of school. Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is Fred. Fred, welcome to the podcast.

[Fred]

Well, thank you. It's good to be here.

[Jim Dahle]

Tell us a little bit about yourself, how far you are out of training, what you do for a living, what part of the country you're in.

[Fred]

Yeah, I'm in Colorado and I'm about 23 years out of training. I finished my second residency in 2002 and so I've been in practice now for more than two decades. My specialty is actually plastic surgery, to be more specific, sort of microvascular or reconstructive plastic surgery. I'm also board certified in ENT and fellowship, trained in Oncology, So I have a pretty broad scope of practice.

[Jim Dahle]

It's a lot of time spent in training.

[Fred]

Yeah, it's about nine years of surgical training, so it adds up quickly.

[Jim Dahle]

Any regrets whatsoever about spending that long in training?

[Fred]

No, if I could spend more, I would. I think becoming educated and trained is quite a gift, and it's something that I've enjoyed. And so I actually think it's great to get as much knowledge and education as you can in multiple aspects of life. And so I've really enjoyed it, but I've had no regrets about it. But I. Part of the. Part of the fact that I've had no regrets is that I've also been very fortunate in my ability to sort of pay for it through family support, to be frank. And that has enabled me to do a lot of things in life that are very unique, I think, and also very, very special. Yeah.

[Jim Dahle]

So as we talk about your milestone, it's maybe a little different than lots of milestones we've had on the podcast. You've been able to reach a certain level of financial security that allowed you to spend some time and peace of mind to actually do some writing, get away from surgery quite as much and do some writing. You note that you paid off all your debt as well as reached your savings goals for college for your kids. So tell us a little bit about those goals and why they were important to you.

[Fred]

Yeah, I think the best way to describe my goal is more financial security. And what that means to me is being able to provide sort of the same educational opportunities that I had to my children. And so I've put a lot of emphasis over the last many years of saving for college and higher education for my kids so that they could do what they wanted to do. And I hit that goal about four years ago. I also paid off all my debt in terms of mortgages and other. My wife's educational loans. And so it's something that I have no debt. And basically my kids can kind of do what they want from an educational standpoint. And once I hit those goals, I think there's a big burden with a burden off my shoulders in terms of what I can do. I love what I do. So I've really never thought about retiring early. I actually love what I do. So I've never wanted to sort of become retired at 40 or 50, not even 60. So it's something that once I hit those goals, it sort of gave me some freedom or at least peace of mind.

[Jim Dahle]

Did you cut back on how much you were working and earning after reaching those goals, or was it just more a sense of peace of mind?

[Fred]

It's peace of mind. I mean, I cut back a little bit. I still take a lot of call. I still work five days a week, but I was taking off some afternoons and I was taking off some days that I might not be on call. But I've been in a routine now for 20 years. And I think most surgeons are like this. They get up very early, they go to bed very late, they get their own personal stuff done before seven o' clock in the morning. So from five to seven, it's a routine that once you're in, it is kind of like something that you're comfortable with and it's hard to shake. And so if you shift things around a little bit, there's a lot of time in the days before people get up, they can get work done.

[Jim Dahle]

Tell us a little bit about your college savings goal. What were you trying to accomplish there and how did you do it?

[Fred]

Yeah, so it was 529 plans, and I started literally the first month that I became an attending and I started socking away money for both my children, or I only had one at the time, but eventually the second, and that was just an automatic withdrawal rate of a certain thousands of dollars per month. And then my dad was able to also give me some money for college for my kids. And so we have a lump sum of money now which can enable them really to go to any private school they want. And if they don't want to go to private or any school they want, it doesn't matter. They got the ability now, I think, to make a choice that's their own.

[Jim Dahle]

How did you decide how much was enough in that fund?

[Fred]

Well, I looked at the schools that I went to and extrapolated what they would be. And in times, you know, so it's a lot of money.

[Jim Dahle]

I mean, did you include medical school as well?

[Fred]

Well, I wish my kids would go to medical school. I would be delighted if they wanted to, if they went to medical school. I don't think they will. I think they prefer other aspects of education, but if they decided they wanted to do that, I would find the money for it.

[Jim Dahle]

But you didn't include that in your goal, though.

[Fred]

Your goal was, I did not know, it's private college and probably one to two years of graduate school.

[Jim Dahle]

Okay, So, I mean, did you ever put a number figure on that? You say, I want to have 250,000 in there or how did you pin it down?

[Fred]

It's probably 400 to 500 per job.

[Jim Dahle]

Yeah. That ought to pay for a very nice college education as well as some graduate school. Unless you pick the very most expensive place you can find in the country.

[Fred]

Well, it's a little bit about choice. I mean, I, my parents were very well educated and my dad always told me a story that my dad was the first or his father was straight out of Greece and he was a first generation immigrant and his dad owned a Greek diner in Philly. And he was able to go to school to get able to go to Penn because the owner, his dad became basically an indentured servant to another Greek. He sold the restaurant to him and put his son through college. And so that lesson, my dad always said to me, I'll pay for whatever you want to do. So I've taken that lesson to my children.

[Jim Dahle]

Now there's a very good chance you have overfunded these 529s that they will not actually spend that much. What's your plan for any overfunding?

[Fred]

Well, they can take it to their kids.

[Jim Dahle]

They're just going to change the beneficiary.

[Fred]

To the grandkids, change the beneficiary and make it a fund for education. And that could be whatever they define as education as long as has value for themselves and it could be their children. But the comfort of knowing that you can receive an education and what the cost, that's a, that's a great thing to give somebody. Yeah.

[Jim Dahle]

Now let's talk a little bit about paying off your debts. What debts did you have when you started? It sounds like your parents helped you with your education. Did you have student loan debts as well?

[Fred]

No, my, my parents paid for, for college, for medical school, and then I went to graduate school twice. Once during medical school, once during residency. And so they paid for basically my graduate school, one of my residency programs, paid for one of my graduate degrees. But no, it was paid through my parents and the money was always there. I knew very little about finance probably, probably until I was an attending, to be frank. I mean, I knew that you should invest in pre tax accounts to the max. I don't think I had a brokerage account until probably 10, 15 years ago. So the focus was on sort of becoming educated and obtaining a skill set and a knowledge base that would kind of help others. And that was the focus now.

[Jim Dahle]

So you're desperate for what? A mortgage or what else did you have the Desmond?

[Fred]

I had her two mortgages and then my wife also, she went to, she's a teacher. She went to School for. To be a teacher. And there was debt for her undergraduate as well as her graduate degree. And so that was some family debt for education. So it was that mortgages. And then if you think about saving for college for two kids, it ends up being a lot of money. And once that was all paid off, which is really about four years ago, that's sort of when the peace of mind became sort of very realistic. Yeah.

[Jim Dahle]

So what was your goal as far as paying off your, your mortgage? How long did you want to take to pay it off and how long did it take you and. And tell us about how you budgeted to do that.

[Fred]

I finished training at the age of 37. And so a lot of surgeons don't finish training until mid-30s. In fact, at least for plastic surgery. Everybody. Well, I would say most people in my generation finished a separate residency. First they did general surgery ent and then they did a second residency in plastic surgery. And then you throw in research on top of that. Most of us finished mid-30s, late-30s. So I bought my first house at 37 and didn't pay that house off. But when we moved, I eventually paid that house off in about eight years. Eight years.

[Jim Dahle]

And then that was what you were aiming for? That was your goal or it just.

[Fred]

Happened to work out that way? Well, I was. It just worked out that way. As you sort of begin to have bigger salaries, to be frank, you can pay more things off. And so it was enabled through bigger salaries.

[Jim Dahle]

Give us a sense of what you've earned throughout your career.

[Fred]

Yeah, my base salaries have ranged from about 175,000, which was my initial salary, to up to about 600. And that does not necessarily include bonuses. Those change according to the year and the institution and then the frameworks for bonus structure. But that would be a rough estimation. Yeah. And so the first salary was about 175. And that was after two residencies, two surgical residencies and a fellowship. So it took a while to get a salary that was reasonable, to be frank. Yeah.

[Jim Dahle]

So I mean, give us a sense. What percentage of that were you putting toward investments and toward extra payments on your debts and so forth? Give us a sense of how frugal you were living to accomplish these goals.

[Fred]

Yeah, I would not call myself frugal. I came out with no debt, so I was able to pay bills that were daily bills and I didn't have debt on my head. So I basically started my pre tax accounts as an attending, not as a resident. I didn't even know they existed. I think and so I started that as an attending and when I realized kind of the longevity and the needs and what you needed to save, I understood the 20% rule at that time. I began to roughly do about 20% starting when I became an attendant. And most of my savings at that time was strictly pre tax accounts with a brokerage account that was a couple hundred dollars, five hundred, one thousand a month at the most. And then I was putting money aside for college for my kids at the same time.

[Jim Dahle]

How far away do you think you are from becoming financially independent at this point?

[Fred]

I'd say a few years. But I mean, if I, if I had to retire for whatever reason, I'm fine. I've got disability. I've actually got a pension where I work now. I've got enough in the bank that I would be fine. I don't need a huge salary per se, and all our expenses would be met. So I'm financially comfortable, but I probably have to cut back on lifestyle a little bit. But I've lived a good life, I've traveled, I've been educated in multiple countries, and I've done many things in my life that I have no regrets about. So it's not like I'm saving up to go live abroad for the next five years.

[Jim Dahle]

It sounds like your upbringing had a pretty significant impact on you, maybe not in you becoming financially literate very early on, but tell us a little bit about your role models and how that upbringing affected the way you manage money.

[Fred]

So my dad was a, or is a naval commander and he was also an oceanographer. So he was in the Navy when I was growing up, became a real estate agent, residential real estate agent in Washington D.C. and basically was able to do well. So he did not teach us finance per se, but he was a hell of a role model and still is. He's 85 and still works every day. So he basically set the standard that if you find something you love, your work is not a big deal. And the other thing that I would consider a very big role model is my grandmother, who was one of the first women actually to graduate from Penn in 1933, and she became a public school teacher in Philadelphia. And her discipline was history. And that's what I've studied as undergraduate and in graduate school is history here being history and medical history. So when you have role models like that that are stressing education and they're giving you security, it's kind of what you want to do. And so I've spent a lot of time in graduate school and Undergraduate studying history, European history, medical history. And I've also known that if you like what you do, working until you're 85 is fine. It's actually enjoyable.

[Jim Dahle]

Now, you published a book recently, Reflections of a Microvascular Plastic Surgeon Reconstructing Shattered Lives. Tell us a little bit about the motivation to do that, as well as the financial aspects of it and what you learned from it.

[Fred]

So I must say, I was getting somewhat demoralized by kind of the whole Covid situation in 2021. And then part of that motivation to write a book was actually to sort of help with that morale. I also just don't think people understand how hard trauma surgeons work, how hard reconstructive surgeons work. And it's also. So the book is meant to inspire people to kind of do what I do. It's also meant to show kind of issues of quality of life expertise and how patients exceed expectations. Each. The whole chapter is divided up into basically, facial reconstruction, breast limb salvage, research, all the things that you think about. But there's also. The whole book is devoted to patients. So each chapter is how patients exceed expectations and how important it is what we do as doctors. And I think when people see the value in it, they begin to get reinforced in kind of their career choices and what they're doing. So when you're working 12 hours doing an operation, you're tired. But there's extreme value. And that sort of lesson is what I wanted to show. I wanted. I think doctors will appreciate it because they'll see the value in what they do to help people. And so that was the motivation. There is no money in it written.

[Jim Dahle]

More for doctors or written more for patients.

[Fred]

It's written for both. I've given it to my patients. The patients that are in the book, they've requested copies. And so people that are going through trauma and cancer care or they're undergoing tremendous life changes, it's meant for them. But it's also meant to inspire people to sort of step back and just value our role as a doctor as you begin to see how important we are.

[Jim Dahle]

So did you get rich off the book, or was it disappointing what book publishing pays?

[Fred]

Oh, it doesn't matter. I mean, you get paid. Your publisher gets 90%, you get 10%. So if a book is $40, you get $4. And so there's no money in book selling. You do it to basically inspire people and to hopefully offer some sort of life lesson. But there's. There's not money in books. In book obligation, there's money, perhaps for other folks, but you do it for yourself. You do it for people. You do it so you can offer some life lessons, you know, to. To others. Yeah, sure.

[Jim Dahle]

All right. Well, if there's somebody out there that's like you were 20 years ago, wants to be comfortable, retirable by mid career, maybe wants to spend a little bit of time doing some other stuff on the side, like writing a book, what advice do you have for them?

[Fred]

Well, I think the first thing is that you have to understand that career and money are not sprints, they're marathons. And I think as long as you have security and a plan and you know, you can do something or love it for 20 years, you're going to be fine. And I do think people should take time off to do things that are going to enhance their ability to appreciate their work as a doctor. And that could be as simple as working abroad in the country. It could be taking graduate courses and things that are related to medicine, perhaps history, perhaps even English, but study things that aren't necessarily medicine or necessarily finance, something that will enhance your understanding of what you do, I think that's going to help. Very cool.

[Jim Dahle]

Well, Fred, thank you so much for being willing to come on the podcast and share the lessons you've learned with others and hopefully inspire them to also meet their milestones.

[Fred]

All right, well, thank you. All right.

[Jim Dahle]

I hope you enjoyed that interview. You know, it's interesting as we go through life and talk about, you know, milestones people reach, people are very upfront and very clear and detail oriented when we're talking about the first few milestones, you know, getting back to broke or hitting a net worth of 100,000 or, you know, paying off their student loans, those sorts of things. As we get further out, people get vaguer and vaguer and vaguer with the specifics. I think just looking for a little bit of privacy. And by the time they get to milestones, like being a DECA millionaire, they want to be anonymous completely. So it's always interesting to talk with people about their milestones. But the more you're willing to share, the more the podcast listeners love it, for sure. I promise you, at the top of the podcast, we're going to talk a little bit about the debt dilemma the dentists face. And here's what the dilemma is primarily, right, you're already going to dental school, and if you're like most dental students, you're paying for it with debt, which means you're coming out with something on average around $300,000. That means lots of you have more than $300,000, 400 or $500,000 is not unusual at all. And if you go do a residency of some kind, like many dentists do, a lot of those residencies don't pay you. It's very different from medical residencies. In fact, sometimes you have to pay tuition still while you're in residency. And so not only are you not making payments on your debt, but it's continuing to grow not only from the interest on the money you borrowed in dental school, but from money you're still borrowing to get through residency. And so the highest dental or the highest student loan burdens we ever see are usually from dental subspecialists. You know, it's orthodontists and they owe $1.1 million or $800,000 or something like that. If you pay for your undergraduate and, and maybe some sort of post grad degree, a gap year or something in dental school and your ortho residency and you pay for it all with debt. It's not unusual to be in the high six figures or even seven figures just with your student loans. But I don't think that's necessarily typical for most dentists. I think most dentists are coming out with three or four or $500,000. But that gives them a dilemma, right, because they come out of school or they come out of a one year residency of some kind of. And then they want to practice dentistry and they have a couple of choices. One is to go work as an employee in somebody else's practice. And maybe that practice is owned by another dentist, maybe it's owned by private equity, maybe it's owned by somebody else. But you're an associate and you're probably not getting paid all that well. It's not that unusual even to be paid in the low six figures, less than $200,000 as an associate. And that doesn't work very well when you owe four or five hundred thousand dollars in student loans, especially if you're ready to go buy a house. And with the housing crisis today in a lot of areas of this country, it's hard to get anything decent for less than four or five or six hundred thousand dollars, it seems like. So you've got that debt also potentially being added on to your student loans. But there's another dilemma, right? Because many dentists, if they run a successful practice, make more dramatically more if they own the practice. And so one of the best ways to actually boost your income is to buy a practice. But that means either starting it yourself, which can be challenging or buying it from a retiring dentist. And you're probably going to need a practice loan to do that. Maybe it's another half million or even a million dollars. So the big question a lot of dentists have is, should I keep working as an associate or should I take on even more debt than my student loans and my mortgage? And the answer, I think if you're really willing to get after it and this practice really makes sense to buy, you've really done your due diligence on it and it's going to help you significantly boost your income is probably to take out that debt. But you've got to live pretty darn frugally for a number of years to manage this triple onslaught of debts between your mortgage and the student loans and the practice loan. And so not only do you have to make that practice just as efficient as you can and work your butt off and maybe even hire some associates to work there for you to help boost the profitability as well, but you've got to live very frugally as well. Certainly long enough to get rid of those student loans, but also probably to pay off most of that practice loan, at least to a place where it's very comfortable for the practice to carry that. And then of course, nobody wants to be in mortgage debt for 30 or 40 years, so you probably want to pay that off in some sort of shorter than 30 year period as well. That's going to take some careful financial planning and budgeting. But don't worry, you're going to get there eventually. You're going to be able to live on that nice doctor salary eventually. But this does mean that you've got the equivalent of a live like a resident period that's going to last for something, you know, close to five years, if not maybe even a little bit more, and then grow into that income as slowly as you can. I just don't see any other way around it. Right. You're not going to pay that $600,000 mortgage and those $500,000 in student loans making $140,000 as an associate. You've got to figure out a way to get your income up. You've got the education, you probably need to take on some business risk and yes, probably carry a little bit more debt to get there. Hope that's helpful to you. This podcast was sponsored by Bob Baiani at Protuity. One listener sent us this review. Bob has been absolutely terrific to work with. Bob has always quickly and clearly communicated with me by both email and or telephone with responses to my inquiries usually coming the same day, I have somewhat of a unique situation. Bob has been able to help explain the implications and underwriting process in a clear and professional manner. You can contact [e-mail] Protuity. You can email infoartuity.com or you can just call 973-771-9100. But however you contact him, do so and get that disability insurance in place today before you become ineligible to buy it or it gets more expensive or heaven forbid you actually become disabled. I hope these podcasts are helpful to you. Send us feedback about them. Editoritecoatinvestor.com Let us know how we can serve you better. Truthfully, we spend our time doing this because we want to help you. You can do this. We're here to help.

[Fred]

Keep your head back.

[Jim Dahle]

Head up, your shoulders back. We'll see you next time on the Milestones Millionaire podcast.

[Jeff Rose]

The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.

[Fred]

Sam.