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On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Ryan, Matt, and Cody reflect on 2025’s biggest themes in dentistry and analyze the results from a recent survey sent out to Dentist Advisors’ clients. They unpack the results of the quantitative benchmark data and what it reveals about dentists’ income, spending, savings, debt, net worth, and retirement readiness across different age brackets and career stages. They explore how specialization impacts earnings, how student loans and practice debt shape cash flow, and what dentists’ savings and investment balances look like in practice. Tune in to hear how dentists are really doing financially and what these numbers mean for building long-term wealth and retirement confidence.
Related Readings
2025 Financial Benchmark Results for Dentists
Podcast Transcript
Ryan: Welcome to the Dentist Money Show where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I am Ryan and I’m here with Matt and also special guest, Cody Barrus Hello everybody. What’s happening?
Cody Barrus: Alright.
Matt Mulcock: Two times in the same week, guys. It feels good. I, this is starting, starting to feel like a bit of a dream team. I’m just, I’m just, I don’t want to label anything. I’m not into labels. Feels like a real business and it feels like a real dream team. feel like Cody’s really just rounded out the, the, the trio here.
Ryan: Feels like we’re consistent. Feels like.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: Feels like we’re a real business here. I’m a real boy. Yeah.He keeps it serious.
Cody Barrus: So, all right, all right.
Ryan: It’s almost like we’ve been sent to chaperone. And he’s much more talented and smarter and well-spoken, but it’s also kind of like a chaperone situation.
Matt Mulcock: It honestly feels like that.
Cody Barrus: I don’t know about that.
Matt Mulcock: It wasn’t so subtle, not so subtle for the marketing team of like, you know what, we’re going to have Cody do this with like, Sthuti messaging me like, hey, how about Cody joins you guys?
Ryan: Hey, what do you guys think about having like a moderator? I mean, like another guest with you, another…
Matt Mulcock: And I was like, you think, you think Cody’s going to stop us? You think Cody’s going to stop us?
Cody Barrus: Yeah. Yeah. Nothing. Yeah. Nothing’s stopping you guys. It’s like the studio didn’t tell me that was my role. She just said to go in and just have a good time. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s fun.
Ryan: He hasn’t been around long enough to know how to stop the train, you know?
Matt Mulcock: Cody feels the pressure. He feels the pressure. And he’s just like, these guys are idiots. Yeah. So he just went, yep, yep. Well, you’ve done a great job.
Ryan: He just sits back and his eyes get bigger and we’re just like, like what tangent are we on? Yeah, you’re doing good. Thanks for coming back, dude. Yeah. Well, another round of shout outs to Cody and the team, for putting together what ends up being one of the favorite podcasts of our entire year, which is really cool. It’s where we steal the idea from Spotify and we do a Dentist advisors wrapped and we talk about some of our data, most talked about data that everyone wants to know.
Matt Mulcock: It like, it feels like every company does this now. We were swapping some things like some other, like kind of wraps level results from like software, software as we use. And, it’s funny how like every company does this now. We’re just. Yeah. Are we basic now? Are we just considered basic? Yeah.
Ryan: Mmm. ⁓ Yep. Uh-huh. Yeah, it’s cool. You’re in review. There’s some good ones. We’re basic. I did like the this platform Riverside. I liked the most used word and then the and then the arms. That was good, actually.
Matt Mulcock: I I sent that to the team. Yeah, that was so funny. They did like a little compilation. That was really funny.
Ryan: of like every time we said ⁓ or There’s another one I need to find of us laughing. It’s like a compilation of us laughing. I try and define that. It’s like 30 seconds of just compilations of us laughing. Yeah. I need to send it. It’d be funny.
Cody Barrus: that’s good.
Ryan: Really? Okay. All right.
Cody Barrus: What was the most used word? I’m curious.
Matt Mulcock: It was percent. Percent. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Cody Barrus: Okay, I could see that.
Ryan: I’m surprised it wasn’t dude, to be honest. I think we’ve probably grown up a little bit more, but if it had been like the first six years of the podcast, it would have been dude. Yeah. All right. Well, ⁓ speaking of, let’s get into this. this is the second half, depending on how you’re listening to this, but second part of our wrapped data.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we’re more professional now. It’s very true. Yeah, dude or man or yo times. Can we, can we point out really quick that we’re watching this? You can watch this on YouTube. So we’re going to, we’re going to be talking a lot about results and numbers, and we are now pushing an initiative in 2026 of doing a lot more video and YouTube. We realized that a lot of people watch podcasts now, which is. I like, but anyway, so you can find this on YouTube. If you’re listening in your car or somewhere and you want to get all the visuals, we’re going to talk about, are on YouTube now. Check it out.
Ryan: I mean, let’s give it… Yeah, yeah, please. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go to the tube of you tube.
Cody Barrus: saying that I watch a podcast, does it just sound more sophisticated than saying I’m watching a YouTube video? that what people now, that’s what they say, I’m watching a podcast? Yeah.
Ryan: Mmm. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it totally does.
Matt Mulcock: I think so, yeah, I think so. Exactly. It’s so true.
Ryan: Yeah. Hey, I was going to say really quick, if someone is like maybe joining us or new to this series, maybe just like a quick intro of where this data comes from, I think would be kind of cool and helpful if someone hasn’t heard a little bit about this before. for someone like that, I would just say we’ve been around for almost two decades now. Can you believe that, Matt? It started almost two decades ago. I like to round up. It sounds cooler. It’s like 18 and a half years. Second decade.
Matt Mulcock: Wild. I joined in the second decade,
Ryan: are we, we’re pushing, if not quite there yet, 700 clients around the country, over half a billion dollars of assets managed for dentists all over the country and all kinds of investment retirement accounts. And, we track as part of our core service of doing wealth management and financial planning just for dentists around the country. We track a lot of metrics. ⁓ the, the core philosophy, the foundational piece of making smart financial decisions is being really, really organized and tracking metrics and data points that help tell a story and also help form questions about someone’s financial health and their picture, where they’re at, where they’re headed, and how fast they’re going there. ⁓ this is us, and these are data points that we use in our financial planning on a daily basis with clients. That’s kind of part of the experience. So this is us taking a lot of these benchmarks and averages because everyone wants to know, how do I rank? How do I stack up? Some of these things, we used to publish benchmarks a lot more. Maybe we’ll come back to that. We’ve been doing this annually. A lot of benchmarks are way too nuanced to just throw out there. Like average tax rates, 29%. It’s like, whoa, know, a lot of questions there. But this is just us taking.
Matt Mulcock: Yep, yep.
Ryan: all of our data and experience from almost two decades and hundreds and hundreds of clients and literally thousands of conversations with dentists and data points and this is it. So that’s where it comes from. Anything else you guys would add to that?
Matt Mulcock: I would just say jokes aside, shout out truly Cody for being like the reason why Cody is here is because of the level of, ⁓ an amount of effort he put into this to, to put this data together. And he’s, he’s going to be able to answer the nitty gritty stuff for Ryan and I’s we’re looking at this. ⁓ he, I, he just, him and sthuti and the team deserve so much of a shout out for, for putting this together.
Ryan: Yeah. It takes so much. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks guys. Okay.
Cody Barrus: Thanks, Matt. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Should jump in? Was quantitative?
Ryan: Let’s just go. It’s just, are
Cody Barrus: Let’s do it.
Ryan: you worth? What what are, what are people worth? You know, what’s their human value? That’s what we’re getting. What are you worth? You know, what’s your, what’s your human value? What if we started to try to rank that based on like how fun you are? Like, are you, are you a fun hang? Do you, are you good in conversations? Are you rich? Do you have a boat? Do you have a boat? Human value is higher. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: What’s your human value?: that do you have a boat and it’s our second home? Um, well, Cody, do you want to break down this chart? What’s that? you, again, you put, put together this data. Do you want to just kind of break it down first kind of high level? we’re looking at.
Ryan: Yeah, like this.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So this one, this is kind of an overarching average of the metrics that we get asked about the most as advisors. So this one, mean, it’s broken down by specialty ⁓ specifically. So on the left-hand side, I mean, if you’re watching this on YouTube, you can see, but we’ve got it broken down between general dentist, orthodontist, know, periodontist and adonist oral surgeon. It breaks it down by averages according to those specialties. So the overall, if we’re looking at specifically age, if we took all of our clients, the average age is 41 years old, which, which yeah, that’s like, so.
Ryan: Still holding pretty steady. Yeah, it’s actually like kind of held steady. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s been around that 39 to 41 range since I’ve been here.
Ryan: huh, late 30s, early 40s. That’s kind like the avatar for who we’ve done business with for so long, yeah.
Cody Barrus: So yeah, and it just goes across the board. Another thing that we talked about a lot is net worth. Again, if we take all of the clients that we have that we met with, the average net, not self-worth, net worth, very different. Yeah. If we’re just looking at a general dentist, which most of our clients are general dentists, the average net worth is around two million. So if you think the average client,
Matt Mulcock: Not self-worth, Yeah, not human value.
Ryan: Not human value, net financial dollar amount net worth. Yeah.
Cody Barrus: that we’re working with in our client base is age 41, net worth is about two million. So that’s kind of what we’re looking at here.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Matt, retirement readiness, that’s a new term-ish. Walk us through what are we saying by retirement readiness. Thanks, Cody.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah, we’ve, we’ve done a bit of a re brand. We’ll call it. don’t know if it rebrands the right word, but just kind of some, some adjustments to some of the metrics we use and the things we talk about. Uh, so for the OG listeners and people who follow us have followed us for a long time, you’re going to know the term total term. That was redundant. You’re going to know the word total term, uh, which is what we’ve used for a long time. We decided to, uh,
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: Lean more into clarity over cleverness when we came, went kind of did this revamp and restructure of.
Ryan: That’s not a very chat GPT, but I know that came from you, clarity over cleverness. That came from you, like, it’s so well spoken. Anything that’s so well spoken these days, I’m like, that was chat. That was actually you. You’ve been talking like this before OpenAI came along.
Matt Mulcock: Did that sound like chat? GPT? I don’t know if that’s a compliment. Yeah, I’m literally just, I’m just literally reading chat. No, I’m just kidding. ⁓ so yeah, so we’ve leaned, that’s kind of been our goal is how do we get more clear, less, not saying we don’t want to be clever and fun and whatever, but just how do we lean into clarity? So all that to say one of the main, the, the ultimate North star metric for if, if any client canvases like what’s the ultimate thing you’re trying to help us do.
Ryan: Yeah, clarity over cleverness. I do like that. Yeah, that’s cool. Uh-huh.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: It’s to get to retirement readiness work being optional as soon as possible. Right. I like what you said, Ryan on the last show when we did prior, I can’t remember, but about getting rich quicker. I kind of like this and I want to start maybe implementing this. Yeah. You stole that from G we were just stealing stuff from GPT. ⁓ but, ⁓
Ryan: Yeah, work optional. Yeah, retirement readiness, work optional. Yep. yeah, get rich quicker, get rich quicker.
Cody Barrus: That’s another one that sounds like comes from chat GPT. Yeah.
Ryan: Get rich quicker.
Matt Mulcock: Say, kind of that same concept we’re, trying to get people to be. And again, we like this term readiness for retirement. doesn’t mean you’re going to retire, but we want to get you ready. So that is, but the numbers are the same. So when we go through these numbers here, it is the same. It’s a multiple of your, ⁓ spending and, or, and, or the number of years you can live off of your assets with no growth You can look at it either way.
Ryan: Yeah. Hmm. annual spending. Yeah. Yep. With an ideal range being somewhere that begins around a 25 score and above. That’s a target, or above starts to become the ideal. going back to that now, we’re saying the average, let’s just say general dentist, kind of like the industry, general dentists make up the majority of our client base as well. The average ⁓ dentist being about 41, having a $2 million net worth on average and a retirement readiness of 10.28.
Matt Mulcock: That would be the target. Yep. 25 or above.
Ryan: When I have a client asking me, what’s the pace of like where my retirement readiness score for ROG listeners, our total term, how that should pace along. Now for one, the first 10 points of your retirement readiness score are slow. They take a long time to build that momentum. It goes way, way longer than you think. An ideal average. when I, okay.
Matt Mulcock: Longer than you think. Yep.
Ryan: I also like to say this to clients too, when I use the word average, I’m talking about among our clients. If you took our clients data and overlaid it across like ADA data among dentists, just generally speaking in the industry, our clients are out there in another league. They just are getting rich quicker. Get rich quicker. Yeah, so I love it. Get rich quicker I think is really cool.
Matt Mulcock: get much quicker. That’s going to stick dude. That’s going to stick.
Cody Barrus: It’s good.
Ryan: So when I tell a client, okay, among our clients, an average pace of this is if ideally, if you could hit a 10 by the time you’re 45 and a 20 by the time you’re 55 and then somewhere around the 30 by the time you’re in your mid sixties, that’s a good pace of building a retirement readiness score. And you might be below or above that. ⁓ And you know, anything above a 25 really starts to put you into a place where work is truly optional mathematically, just pure math. So what this tells me,
Ryan: is it confirms the story I know to be true among our clients, which is our clients tend to build a higher net worth, faster and safer at an earlier age than the average dentist according to average ADA kind of data. you know, if a, and when I say hit a 10 retirement readiness score at age 45, that’s not what the average dentist is doing across the country in the industry. That’s not, our clients are doing that and they’re hitting it on average earlier than that. 70.
Matt Mulcock: The average dentist retires at 69 or 70. So yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, almost 70. And we know these stories. I mean, that’s a lot of anecdotal stuff, but we know these stories from the thousands of conversations we’ve had. It’s not always intentional. So this data just tells me our clients are ahead of schedule. They’re already like ahead of the norm, and they’re ahead of the norm ahead of schedule, if that makes sense. That’s what this tells me, and that’s what I know about our clients to be true, which is really, really cool to see this stuff.
Matt Mulcock: There’s a couple of the data points I want to point out, but I want Cody to jump in here as you were kind of reviewing this data as we’re looking at it now. Anything I just want to get your thoughts on it. Anything that stands out to you, Cody.
Cody Barrus: ⁓ No, I actually, it’s funny going into this, I kind of had that question that I was going to pose is what, you know, at age 40, what should your retirement readiness number be? And so I’m glad that Ryan went over that because it, yeah. And I think, I think it’s around that. So I think it’s important to know that.
Ryan: Single digits would be good, a five, a six.
Matt Mulcock: six, seven, dang it, hate that so much.
Ryan: I don’t
Cody Barrus: our net worth and our retirement readiness number grows exponentially, like it’s not flat. Like you hear the first million is harder than the next million, like, it really is true. You know, as your retirement readiness grows, it grows exponentially for you. So.
Matt Mulcock: Yes.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, does mean, the first points from 0 to 10, they’re hard earned. ⁓ from 10 to 20 faster, 20 to 30 faster. It’s just the compounding effect of bigger accounts, higher income, less debt, more profitability, higher income potential. Yeah, this is cool to see a little bit of an underlying outlier on the perio side. But that’s probably just a, what does that say to you? I mean, it’s just a data thing. Sample size.
Matt Mulcock: so true. I was just going to point that out. And Cody, you might have this data. You might not be able to access this, but I think this is a sample size issue. So when I look at this, the overall, so yeah, the perio skews, I just think we don’t have that and look at the income, the perio skews the income way up too. So there’s a couple outlier. think perio just is an outlier as a whole, but go ahead, Cody.
Cody Barrus: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Yeah, it’s just a sample size. And they skew younger. Our Perio clients are like younger than average. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I was going to say I’m looking at the numbers as far as like how many general dentists, how many periodontists, you know, we surveyed. so periodontists, have 12 in our sample size. So compared to like general dentists, there’s 290. So the num, you know, it’s a smaller sample size. So it’s harder to get kind of a more accurate number for them.
Ryan: I was just gonna look at those, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: OK, so there you go.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: So I kind of not, not saying we’d throw it out completely just with that caveat. So when I’m looking at this, the average client age being 41, 41 and a half, like the IRS number, they love the half numbers. ⁓ so 41 and a half average net worth 2.1 million average retirement readiness. That includes the perio number that pulls that down a little bit, but the overall average is 10 and a half.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Cody Barrus: Thank you.
Matt Mulcock: and then we’ll hit income here in a second, like that to me, to your point, Ryan, I look at that and I’m like, these people, if you’re out there listening, ⁓ to give reference point, like that is ahead of schedule for the typical dentist. just is like you overlay that on a, on a ADA map of, or demographics map. this is definitely a head is just, I wanted to just give context, like to your point, Ryan.
Ryan: Yeah, it is. And I just looked at it period. On us apparently. Thanks chat. Make up two and a half to 3 % of the dental industry, which is actually kind of in line with the numbers that we have based on our client total. So, uh, so anyway, shout out to perio. Hey, if you know any perios, send them our way. We need to bump our numbers, pad the stats a little bit more. If you’re a perio listening, you have a higher to see, give us a call. We’ll send you a mug. We’ll send you a Dentist money show mug. If you sign up today. Okay.
Matt Mulcock: ⁓ yeah, there you go. Actually fits. We need to up our numbers. We really will. really will. and
Ryan: Sign up bonus.
Matt Mulcock: Anything else on that for you guys, like the net war, want, I think we should talk about income, but anything else that jumps out to you guys, I’m just on age of net worth or anything.
Ryan: Well, Matt, what do you see about the income numbers? I feel like every year we do this, they just keep going higher.
Matt Mulcock: They, was going to say that. So our average, ⁓ let’s look at the overall average. again,
Ryan: Not that long ago when we started this rap series, it was in the force, the average income.
Matt Mulcock: Four’s now our average is over 600 again. Killing it that now, ⁓ we ortho two locations, my guy. ⁓ Isaac, Isaac Mulcock ortho. couldn’t put, we couldn’t put my last name in it. We couldn’t put my last name in it. just, it just doesn’t work, dude. It just doesn’t work. you could do Barrus You could do Barrus Isaac ortho and then I’ll be your secretary. ⁓ I’ll be the associate.
Ryan: You guys are doing, killing it out there. Should have been dentists. I know, Isaac Ortho, two locations. Gosh, are you? It’s fine. It’s fine. Isaac Ortho, yeah, all right. Yeah, you could be the associate,
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: Okay.
Matt Mulcock: so the overall average, again, caveat, perio is pulling this up for sure. Cause the average perio we have is 861,000. So it’s pulling it up, but, the overall average of income for those surveyed is over 607,000. Um, and then the median being 518 still going up.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.Yeah, Perry is making some money. Yeah. Still going up. Yeah, that thing’s, you know what else this says about the perio category? Again, tiny sample size, but it’s just kind of funny. High income, high net worth, younger age, lower retirement readiness. That means the other component in the fraction of retirement readiness is spending. That means our average perio are spending higher than, yeah, spending some money. I think those orthos gotta be given a run for their money, but the orthos are earning too, so I don’t know. I know, I know.
Matt Mulcock: It’s be there. It has to be. Look at those orthos. Yeah, lower net worth, but a higher retirement readiness.
Ryan: We love it. That’s spending number, right? You know.
Cody Barrus: I wonder too, I think of Orthos, I wonder if the lower net worth is their residency is usually a little bit longer, right? So.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. And, and it’s expensive.
Ryan: Take some longer. Yep, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: It’s a really good point, but look at that. Look at that. Right. Look at that readiness. So, know, it looks good. So yeah, it bears repeating Ryan. Their income has increased every year. We’ve done this by quite a bit.
Ryan: Love this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what does that say about the industry as a whole? think as time goes on, dentists are ⁓ finding ways to continue to be more and more successful. What about DSOs? about cost of school? What about insurance reimbursements? Yeah. And then people are adjusting well ⁓ to the changing industry landscape. So, it’s good.
Matt Mulcock: Yep. Cody, you to break this down? This, this chart here.
Cody Barrus: yeah. So this year, something that we did a little bit different compared to last year is we wanted to focus more on separating individuals into age ranges because like we showed on the last slide, that’s just kind an overall average of all the people that we surveyed. But what we were realizing is that everyone is in a different stage according to their age, right? Like someone ages 27 to 35.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Cody Barrus: their income, their retirement readiness is gonna be a whole different story compared to someone that’s 60. And we also, this year, focused more on the median number instead of the average, because we think that shows a little bit of a more accurate depiction of our client base. so, some averages can be skewed, right? I mean, if Rabih yeah, if Rabih was here, I’m sure he could give us a whole hour, yeah.
Ryan: than average. Mm hmm. Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: they’ll be skewed up or skewed down.
Ryan: Probably would make a formula on the spot
Matt Mulcock: He’d give us a dissertation.
Ryan: To tell us.
Cody Barrus: Right, anyway, so that’s what this graph is kind of showing us. Everything is broken down by ages and just the median instead of the average this year.
Ryan: Yeah, and this is also pulling out incomes, ⁓ excluding incomes over $2 million. Which again is an interesting thing, like, you have to exclude incomes. Yeah, people are making a lot of money in dentistry. It’s really good.
Cody Barrus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, we note on that we did that because we want to try and exclude any outliers, right? We know there are going to be a few making more than 2 million, but we like we want to really want to just capture kind of the average client, the average dentist that we’re working with.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So we pulled, we pulled Ryan and I out of this dataset. Obviously, you know, that would have skewed it. That would have skewed it way down, I mean, up way up.
Ryan: Yeah, I mean, that’s a little unfair. Dude, Isaac Ortho to location was Isaac Barrus Ortho was going to kill. I was going to do so good. Is it too late if I’m 45 to go back and be an ortho?
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Dude, you guys are crushing it right now in your minds. Never, never. It is never too late to chase your dreams, Ryan. ⁓ no, I like that. I think the media is a really good idea. ⁓ so maybe let’s just break this down. County, you know, just for the, for those listening. ⁓ so, and I’d love to hear from you guys just from your perspective, anything that stands out. When I look at this, I’ll just say it tends to make sense to me. The numbers overall, like just directionally, but first age range being 27 to 34.
Ryan: Thank you. Yeah. huh.
Matt Mulcock: Uh, average net worth and sorry, Cody clarify is the net worth also median, but all this data is median. Got it. Got it. So 27 to 34 net worth is a hundred and yeah. So $120,000 net worth a 2.6 on the retirement readiness and then annual income of three 56 for even the young, even the young bucks.
Cody Barrus: Yes, yeah, all of this data is median on this slide. Yep.
Ryan: Hmm. But look at income at that age range. That’s what I’m saying. I think people are finding good work. They’re making money.
Matt Mulcock: Is this just selection bias for us though? Do you guys think it is right?
Ryan: Yes. Yeah. think
Cody Barrus: I’m sure there’s some,
Ryan: if you just told the general population across the country, hey, average dentist between 27 and 34, median income is 356, they’d be like, no, it’s not. I’m making half of that at some giant six day a week corporate shop. you know, it’s cool.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. I think that’s probably true for sure. Like you would be, you’d be hard pressed to find associates with immediate income of three 56 at this age or maybe ever. Um, but practice owner, I think I still contend that the income data released by the ADA and like, know, these reports that come out around like, you know, highest pay profession dentistry still at the top, but it’s so skewed downward and so inaccurate.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yes, it’s payroll reports. Yep.
Matt Mulcock: When you actually understand how a dentist practice owner is paid, it’s just not even close, but still, that’s a 56 killer killer income for someone 34 younger.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is there, for people who do not want to own a practice, or just for one reason or another, is there a career to be had being a career associate? Yeah. Yeah, there is. You make great living. ⁓
Matt Mulcock: Oh yeah, there is making, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah. Uh, age range 35 to 39 net worth just, uh, starting to get into that seven, close to seven figures now to a median of 903,000. Yeah. Median retirement readiness score of 5.2 and an annual median income of 515,000. That’s again, what I’m noticing here is pretty significant leap across the board.
Ryan: Still surprising, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: from that age jump. What do you guys make of that?
Ryan: I’ll just, while I’m mumbling to myself, say I just think that’s a kind of the age range where you start to pick up a little speed and momentum. A lot of people are buying practices in their thirties, bump in income, bump in net worth just because of those things. So, I mean, I think that’s where you just start to see like people going from associateships to practice ownership and getting a bump there. It’s cool though.
Cody Barrus: ⁓ That was my thought as well. That’s probably around the time they’re buying a practice, know, give or take a few years. So the bump makes, like the bump in income makes sense to me.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s cool to see. Cody, go ahead. Yeah, I totally agree. And interesting here, the income kind of settles down on this next range being 40 to 44 net worth takes a sizable leap in this age range from 900 to one point just under 1.8. Yep. That’s maybe that’s paid down more. So
Ryan: Yeah. I think a lot of people are buying real estate at that age. Give it a few years. They’re just accumulating more assets. Their income’s rising. Profitability’s rising. Some debts are coming off. Yeah. Just making more money.
Matt Mulcock: Yep. Uh, retirement readiness at 7.1. So it’s almost, almost exactly a two point jump from that age range before. then incomes of steady, which, which I don’t think is that surprising that income steady within that 35, like early or mid mid to late thirties and then mid or sorry, early to mid forties. It’s about 515, 118, 518,000.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, kind of a steady, yeah, for sure. That makes sense. I mean, it’s still kind of that same group of late 30s, early 40s, newish practice owners accumulating more assets, paying off debts. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yep, for sure. Uh, this is the big leap as they call it. think we had a big leap in some time in history. I don’t know when it’s like 1500, 1600 they call it anyway, the big leap. Um, this is our big leap from 45 to 49. Uh, net worth goes, the median is now three point, just under 3.7 million with a retirement readiness of 12 and an income jump to 640,000.
Ryan: Yeah, it is. Okay, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: This is where now we’re in the Cody Barrus range. Cody, Cody, what are your thoughts here? What does that feel like Cody?
Ryan: What does that feel like Cody? Yeah,
Cody Barrus: Yeah,
Ryan: That’s your category.
Cody Barrus: it’s close to the Cody Barrus range. But no, I think it makes sense. like they buy their practice in their 30s, early 40s, things start rolling, they start, you know, becoming a little bit more profitable, their income jumps up. These numbers make sense to me, they start paying down more debt, right, so their net worth goes up and they’re
Matt Mulcock: we’re not even there yet.
Cody Barrus: I mean, the retirement readiness score on this is about even with what Ryan was saying earlier, right? Your mid 40s to late 40s, early 50s, you’re starting to get into the double digit retirement readiness score, which is cool.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that was super cool. Yeah.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, this is we’re going to see it in the next age range, too. This is a part where people are still ramping and scaling up. Practices are purchased. know, they’re running sometimes peak income, performance, profitability margins. This is also where people start getting associates and partners buy back some time. I think we’ll start to see that in the next age range brackets where network still increases.
Ryan: Income will jump in the next one and then kind of hold steady for a little while because they’re passing along production work to other people while their net worth still continues to grow.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think that’s super insightful as you, as you hit the next age range here being 50 to 54. We now have hit a $4 million net worth, median just under 16 on the retirement readiness, but income drops in this age range. And I think Ryan, you just hit it on the head. Easy explanation there. It’s now down to five 80 from six 40.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s just you you pass off production you buy you want some time back by the time You’re you’re getting tired backs hurting you know, you’re sitting on a Florida podcast and you’re only 45 and Which is where I find myself right now. You’re getting ready for back surgery See, I mean, yeah, they’re they’re hiring associates. They’re getting partners. They’re taking liquidity off the table out of their business you know selling some ownership and
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, you’re getting ready for back surgery and you’re getting ready for back surgery. not even, you’re not even 40 yet. So yeah, I feel you.
Ryan: They’re preparing for transition. They’re preparing to slow down. They’re just getting some time back. Yeah, it’s cool.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think it makes sense. Cody, any thoughts on this section here, this age range?
Cody Barrus: I was just gonna say, I think it’s cool, at least with the sample size that we have, it’s cool to see that people can scale back a little bit because of all the preparation they’ve done for the last 20 years, right? I feel like the average dentist or the average person isn’t that prepared at that time. Does that make sense? Like their net worth isn’t high enough where they’re like, man, maybe I can…
Ryan: Yeah. Which is true.
Cody Barrus: scale back and only do three days instead of four or maybe I can hire an associate. I know it’ll lower my income but I’m okay with that because I have enough assets built up that I’m like okay taking some time off.
Ryan: Mm-hmm, it’s also, yeah, it’s a really good point, Cody, and I’ll just say too, from the kind of financial planning we do for the majority of clients, most of those people in that net worth is gonna be highly liquid. So when people have multi-seven figure net worths, they’re gonna have quite a bit of liquidity access to money without penalties and fees, that’s how we define that. More liquidity than the average dentist, which is… of what you’re describing. They’ll find themselves a lot less stressed out. Debts are getting paid off. They’ve accomplished a lot of things. They’re getting more and more liquid as the years go on. A liquid net worth just lowers your stress quite a bit and makes it easier to say, yeah, let’s bring in an associate. Let’s bring in a partner. Let’s slow it down a little bit. Let’s knock off half a day, a full day. Just makes it easier. So the composition of these net worths are interesting. ⁓ Most of our clients are very, very liquid dentists. It doesn’t mean money sitting in a checking account. It’s still growing and invested. Yeah, it’s accessible. And that liquidity, it just feels different. sleep better, you sleep different at night when you’re liquid and you make decisions differently. ⁓ So anyway, yeah, it’s interesting. ⁓
Matt Mulcock: means accessible. Yeah. And I think that matched up with the age that you guys have both pointed out. It’s just, I think, I think we’ve seen this, Dentist have a different mindset of that age. They do. And they’re, they’re okay at that age, meaning that age being like, as they enter their fifties, mid fifties and beyond, even if they’re going to still work, I think they start to just think about it differently. They’re like, you know what? I’m going to, I’m okay. Making less to get more time back or just relax more more health. Exactly. So
Ryan: Yeah. You do. Mm-hmm. More time, more health back. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: It’s, it’s just cool to see this bearing out like the, the things that we see in real life with dentists bearing out on the data and having a really easy story to tell that just lines up really well. ⁓ last two age ranges here. So 55 to 59, ⁓ net ⁓ worth continues to climb. Not, not a shock here. 4.7 million and change a 17.3 on the median. Yep. Just keeps going up on the retirement readiness and then income.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, that continues to go up.
Matt Mulcock: continues to come down at this age range of, uh, five 57. Um, do you think it just, that’s just a continued story. Just continue to scale back.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yep. Scaling back. Net worth goes up. You want more time. You want your health back. Time to start slowing down. things to the next generation, next dentist. Start thinking about your exit. Yeah, income will come down a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I that makes sense.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, I can see that. I also want to know our sample size is a lot smaller in these age ranges too. So we have a little bit less data here, but I would agree. feel like that the story makes sense. Like the numbers. Yeah, the tracks.
Ryan: Yeah, the older they get. huh. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s a point. Good point.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Well, it’s like the last
Matt Mulcock: Still tracks.
Ryan: age bracket, 60 to 78, ⁓ fewer people here. ⁓ Net worth does start to, yeah, bit wider age bracket. ⁓ Retirement readiness continues to climb. Income comes down still. Again, people are retiring in age and they’re withdrawing their assets. They’re drawing down their assets. So you’ll see net worth ⁓ drop in some of these cases as they start spending down the money they saved.
Matt Mulcock: Yep. Bigger bracket too, by the way, way bigger bracket.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: Again, huge bracket there, 12 year span.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s it. I was going to say no 18 year span, right. And the, and the last one where that’s
Ryan: Or 18, yeah, not 72, it’s 78. 18 year span. And especially when you start getting like late 60s, early 70s, yeah, you’re depleting stuff. Yeah, you should be, yeah, that’s what you saved it for. You better be spending it.
Matt Mulcock: starting to deplete your assets. You should be. You should be. Yep. You better be spending it. ⁓ anything else on this guys before we go to the next?
Ryan: Not cool to see, no.
Matt Mulcock: ⁓ Cody, break, break it down for us.
Ryan: Oof.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, so
Ryan: Average spending.
Cody Barrus: these are just some more metrics. ⁓ Again, it’s broken down by age range. These are all median numbers instead of averages. But on this slide, ⁓ we’re talking about spending and savings, like more of the cash flow. The last slide was more net worth and balance sheet. This is more cash flow. it’s interesting to see. mean, we’ll talk about it, but.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Cody Barrus: you know, spending increases as income increases is kind of what it looks like, which there’s some spending creep there and it makes sense, you know, as you make more, you want your lifestyle to be a little bit better, right? So.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and there’s these like phases in life that probably don’t align perfect with those age brackets, but you you go from the first house to like the next big house or the dream house, or you go from the small least for operatory location to the dream building that you built from the ground up on some dirt. And yeah, there’s, there’s chunks of time in here where you have these big expenditures that draw down liquidity and some net worth for while you take on more debt. And then it obviously builds back up.
Ryan: Yeah, this is interesting. I was trying to rough calculate spending percentages and ⁓ spending percentages, but these all hold true at like a third ish. Like people are spending about a third of what they make on average ish. Maybe a little bit more, 40%. People are spending about 40 % of what they’re Kind ⁓ of holds true. I mean, that’s all personal.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah.
Ryan: That’s all your personal expenses, personal debts, home, all the stuff that happens over a whole year. ⁓ What are national savings rates averages like national public right now?
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. really, really low single digits. think lately it’s been like 1 % to percent in that range.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, thought I saw
Ryan: Jeez, yeah.
Cody Barrus: it’s anywhere between 0 and 3%. But it’s actually the higher net worth individuals that are saving more is what’s pulling that up from zero. Like if you were to take the median household in America, their savings rate would be zero, essentially.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah,
Ryan: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: which makes sense.
Ryan: Yeah. And you look at this savings rate data, obviously it’s lower savings, even on higher incomes at an earlier age, but lower savings dollars, which makes sense because you’re still, you still have a lot of debt in those early years.
Cody Barrus: Yeah. Something, ⁓ sorry, man. I was gonna say something to note on this too, for the annual savings. ⁓ This one, we kind of have to make some assumptions and it’s because we only have savings data for money that’s saved in accounts that are under our management. And so like this first age range, for example, the annual savings is 41,000. That’s only data that we have from accounts that we manage and that we seize.
Matt Mulcock: go ahead Cody. No, no, go ahead.
Ryan: Yeah, uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: that we’re managing.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, so
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Cody Barrus: they may have, you know, a 401k with another provider or something that they’re maxing out that we don’t see. And so.
Ryan: Yeah, or we can’t track the data. We can see it on our balance sheet and the dashboards, but we don’t have like auto data to get there. And, you know, it’s worth noting too, some of these people are making extra debt payments. They’re paying down debt faster, which we consider savings. mean, bottom line, the average dentist that works with us has a savings rate just so far and above not only average, but average dentist out there ⁓ for sure.
Cody Barrus: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I’m realizing we probably should be giving some numbers to this because a ton of people are listening to this and not watching on YouTube. So, um, just even yeah, they’re not watching, but I think the spending data people want to hear probably more than anything. So, uh, 27 to 30, I’ll go through this really quickly. 27 to 34, 158,000 and changed. Don’t think that’s that.
Ryan: Yeah, that’s true. Let’s start reading away. Yeah, feel like I’m in a webinar and I’m like wait, they’re not what yeah No one’s seeing this.
Cody Barrus: You Yeah, let’s go. Yep.
Ryan: Yeah, that’s good.
Matt Mulcock: Especially with an income of three 56, like that’s pretty reasonable. 35 to 39, that spending jumps to 204,000, uh, from 40 to 44, 213,000 and change from 45 to 49 average spending is teetering on the edge of 20,000 a month. So you’re going to 20, I’ll just round up 231,000. And then from 50 to 54, it hits that 240,000 for the year.
Ryan: Yeah, average income. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: goes up even a little bit more from the 55 to 59 at two 46 a year. then that large cohort in the, the last 60 to 78, it drops to one 71, which is not surprising at all. Really peaking that late fifties.
Ryan: Yeah, 18 years, man. No. So peaking late 50s into your 60s, and again, this just reiterates the point that we make all the time. Do not assume that magically one day when you’re older, your spending is just going to drop off a cliff. It’s not going to cut in half. And it won’t significantly drop until you start approaching 70. Just statistically, anecdotally, that’s just going to be the case. And you can see this here. mean, you’re going to, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Cause someone might, someone might see that Ryan, the, the 171 and be like, what do mean? It dropped off significantly, that age, the age bracket at the end goes up to 78 and that’s going to definitely be, and to Cody’s point earlier, this is just much smaller cohort. Um, I do think just, I do think spending will eventually drop in general, in general, but not like people always think.
Ryan: Yeah. It goes up to 78. Yeah. Yeah, much smaller sample size.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, uh-huh. Not like you assume, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: ⁓ and I think spending is going to be much higher than you realize. Right. Well, I’d say it depends on when you retire, but let’s say you walked away from dentistry earlier than average. you were, let’s say we’re like early sixties or even late fifties. You can bank on the fact that spending will go up because you’re healthier. You’re younger. You’re going to travel more. You’re going to spend more on your kids and grandkids. So your spending will most likely go up and then eventually come down later.
Ryan: Well, and especially if we’re talking about people retiring in their sixties with a 25 plus retirement readiness score, that type of a score basically means if you keep spending like you’re spending, you’re going to be passing a lot of your wealth along and everyone has very different views and wants on what they want to do with their net worth and passing along. So some people I imagine get to that place. They’re like, this money is going to last longer than we’re going to live, which is going to be the case for a lot of our clients. And not everyone is going to want to live a life where that all gets passed down. They’re going to want to splurge a lot of people in their late 50s, early 60s have kids that are 20s and 30s and probably 20s. And which is a prime age to go splurge on your adult kids in their 20s, because you’re just broke in your 20s. know, and you might have grandkids. You’re like, let’s just.
Matt Mulcock: Yep, yep.
Cody Barrus: you
Ryan: bend the crap out of this thing and take our kids on cool vacations while they’re young and broke and getting into their own adulthood. Really? What’d they say?
Matt Mulcock: just had this, just had this call with a client yesterday, just had this call with a client yesterday. They’re doing extremely well. mean, they, they’re, they’re retirement readiness score. Let’s just say is, um, they, they, they are ready. They are ready times four. Um, they’re, they’re killing it. They do really, really well. They’re, they’re both still working, building the building their business and just killing it. Um, and they will do so for a long time and they’re pretty young.
Ryan: They could lend a few points to some people cheese. Yeah. Yeah. What specialty by the way? Okay. Okay.
Matt Mulcock: They’re GPs or she’s, she’s a GP. I was talking to her husband yesterday, but, ⁓ she, she, anyway, she kills it. Incredible business person does really well. And again, young continuing to do this. She, both will have more money than they know what to do with talk to him yesterday. And we talked about this exact concept, Ryan, where he’s like, my son, our son is graduating college and, ⁓
Matt Mulcock: We, he read somewhere with it be from us or someone else. read somewhere that, ⁓ the, the average person who inherits money is in there. think it’s like mid to late fifties or early sixties. And he was like, and they’re going to, they’re going to pass on some money. And he was like, what are we doing? Like, why don’t we just pass? Like, why don’t we just give some money now to help him get set up with a career and, or a home. And that’s all personal preference, but he had kind of this epiphany of like, we want to give this money now.
Ryan: Yeah. Yep. Now, yeah. I mean, I was building a career and broke and finishing school and having kids in my 20s and even like a average vacation that I couldn’t afford at the time purchased by my parents or grandparents was like, it was the biggest thing ever, you know? So I love that. That’s really cool. And a lot of people will find themselves in this situation and have these choices of like, should we start spending this down a little faster?
Matt Mulcock: which I thought was a really cool intentional approach that he had. Huge.
Ryan: Because when we’re 90 and our kids are in their 50s and 60s, do they need that money as bad as they do in their 20s? Will they enjoy it as much?
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. want to get, as the resident young buck of the group, as Cody pointed out in the last episode, I want to get, I want to dude, I laughed about that honestly afterwards for a while. Just that like you’re so, you’re so kind and endearing, but the way you just like throwing out a stray, just haymaker to Ryan and I was hilarious. Caught it on the chin and it just like slumped us. but
Cody Barrus: Ha ha!
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. Caught it on the chin square square.
Cody Barrus: you So, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: As the resident young buck, really, I’d love to get Cody’s perspective on this from like the, the inheritance kind of discussion, not saying like, I don’t want you to divulge personal information about your family, but just your perspective from a younger person than Ryan and I. Mmm.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, well, I think we’ve heard a ⁓ of clients recently talking about the book Die Was Zero, right? And like, yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yes, Bill Perkins is making the right rounds apparently.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Dude, think TikTok got a hold of it, didn’t it? Is that what happened?
Matt Mulcock: Dude, seriously, yes.
Cody Barrus: So, but I agree with his philosophy where I feel like money spent like with your parents when they’re alive is, I think, more valuable than an inheritance that you get, right? Like, we all hope, I mean, we work in our careers, we save, we like, most of us, try and save for our own retirement the best that we can, right? and we’re trying to set ourselves up, we’re not really banking on getting this big inheritance from our parents. What we’re really hoping for is can we have meaningful experiences while we’re all here together, right? And so this is my personal opinion, but I feel like, you know, like you were saying, Ryan, when you’re in your twenties and having kids and building your career, like I would so much rather have that money spent on a family vacation together.
Ryan: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Matt Mulcock: now. Yeah.
Ryan: man, no question. Yeah, no question. Yeah, or I mean, let alone a down payment for the first home or yeah, paying off some student loans that are just strapping you down and yeah, huge like relief at that time of life.
Cody Barrus: that you can’t really afford at that time in your life, right? Instead of… Right?
Matt Mulcock: I’m glad I’m glad we’re on the side quest. I really do think it’s meaningful and good. The, the counterpoint. I’m not even making this counterpoint truly. Cause I actually agree with you guys’ philosophy. think the other, the other counter, the other side of this that I’ve heard from, from people, which I think is valid is the slippery slope of that approach from dentists who say, well, I don’t want like, I, I am who I am because I earned it.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, but that exists, Yeah. yeah. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: right, right. I have clients who are literally like, I don’t think I’m going to pay for my kid’s school or house. Like, maybe there’s a, now there’s an argument maybe to be made of like affordability of both, both school and homes being different than before. get it. But, but I guess just saying, I think there’s a distinction between the examples you guys gave of saying, ⁓ meaningful experiences created and paid for by like the older, you know, by the parents.
Ryan: A million percent or house. Yeah, a million percent. yeah.
Matt Mulcock: versus like, I’m gonna just pay for your life because I’m gonna give it to you anyway. I just think there’s a balance, I guess I would say there.
Ryan: Yeah. Yep. then like you said, it’ll be everyone’s preference. And then there’s probably things you can pay for that wouldn’t ⁓ maybe ruin someone’s grit or tenacity. So vacations, totally. Yeah, those luxuries. And then you’re like, no, you make your own rent money. You pay your own rent, dude.
Matt Mulcock: Trips are a great example. Great example. Yeah. But, but
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: think of the pressure, think of the second order effects of paying for big vacations for like your adult kids and being like, I’m taking the pressure off of you. Have you feeling the need to do this yourself? And then you can spend your allocate your money and time and energy into building your career. Huge, huge. So
Ryan: Yeah, nope. Yeah. Please do go grind, pay your bills. Yeah, really good. And then let’s, yeah, let’s go. Yep. That’s cool.
Matt Mulcock: I love this. Anything else you guys want to add to the, to the figures here? We, we hit the spending all just really quick. Um, same thing with savings, annual savings. I’ll just go fast. 27 to 34 is 41,000 a year, 35 to 39, uh, 48,000, just under 49,000 a year from 40 to 44, the median savings annual savings is $60,000 a year. Keep in mind, this is just to the accounts we manage from 45 to 49.
Ryan: Not on this one for me.
Matt Mulcock: 55,000 a year, so a bit of a drop, probably just a data anomaly. Um, this one is, I don’t know if I wouldn’t, I actually don’t think it’s surprising. I think there’s a reason for this, but there’s a pretty big jump. So 50 to 54 goes to 138,000 a year. then from 55 to 59 is 146,000 a year. Guys, that’s gotta just be, um, much bigger time of life, much bigger allocations to retirement accounts, cash balance plans.
Ryan: Mm.
Cody Barrus: Thank
Ryan: The jump? No. Mm-hmm. Time of life. Yeah. Those student loans drop off, the practice loan is done. Oh yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. And it’s very common. So what does this mean though? This means that if you have not built, let’s just say like financial systems and processes around you so that when you get to the age when your practice loan and your student loans drop off, it’ll just…
Matt Mulcock: They’re back, back. Yeah. Student loans are backloading. Yep. They’re backloading everything. That makes sense.
Ryan: get spent somewhere else. Like if you don’t have high amounts of organization and some accountability, someone like kind of holding you to, yeah, your $8,000 a month practice loan is done in January, where is it going? If there’s not a ⁓ system and a voice in your head, a little financial Jiminy Cricket chirping at you all the time, it will just go get spent somewhere else. so this also tells me the story of…
Ryan: of the effects of financial planning and financial organization and accountability because this would happen to me too if a debt falls off. It’ll just sit my banking on and I’ll go spend it on something else. So, you know, very important.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, totally agree. Coney,
Matt Mulcock: Cody, any final words on this before we get to the last chart here?
Cody Barrus: And now, oh yeah, I agree with what you guys are saying.
Ryan: It’s like the argument, Matt, of like tax strategy to lower your tax bill, but then what are you doing with your tax savings? Like, are you saving your tax savings or are you just like spending your tax savings?
Matt Mulcock: Yep. That’s a huge part that people don’t always think about for sure.
Ryan: huh. Yeah. Anyway, okay. This last one is what everyone always wants to know too. Debt. Cody, what are we looking at?
Cody Barrus: Yeah, so here again, I mean, we’ve got the age ranges, we have the median values, and I think the numbers all make sense. I know we’ll get into them, but again, we’ve got personal real estate, practice debt, and student loans. And those are the three that people are the most worried about, especially student loans, right? I feel like almost every new client that comes on board, their first question is,what do I do with my student loans? Like these just weigh on my shoulders. How do I get rid of them? So I know we’ll get into it, but I do like seeing that, you know, it takes a while to pay off your student loans and that’s okay. Like that is totally normal. And it’s okay to start with $400, $500,000 of student loans. Like that’s normal. And you can pay them off and build wealth at the same time.
Ryan: Everybody, yeah. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I expect to see those student loan. I’ll break it down really fast. The age range 27 to 34 average student loans is 387, 800. It’s almost 388 ages. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Ryan, what do you think that was when you started? Like when you were doing this 10 years ago or 20 years, 18 years ago.
Ryan: I remember ⁓ the first student loan conversation I ever had was with our first client ever. And I was gathering some data. He was still with us. His loan balance was like 180, his student loans. And it was like at 2%. I remember being like, there’s no way. That’s a typo. That’s crazy. There’s no way you have 180 grand. And that was like his full student loan balance coming out early career now.
Matt Mulcock: who’s still with us. Yeah. Yep. Now you see that you see this 387 is kind like, yeah, that’s normal. Yeah.
Ryan: five, six, 700 grand. That seems low. Yeah, I was gonna say, I expect that column of student loans to just keep skewing higher and lasting longer later into life, which is okay, like Cody said. It’s okay. This whole game is net worth. I’m only financially independent and work optional when debt’s gone, because you can have your debt gone and not have good net worth. This whole game is net worth. So you can hold debt and still have a good net worth. So ages 27 to 34 average. Student loans 388 35 to 39 average student loans are 215 balances Ages 40 to 44 just shy of 90 grand 45 to 49 3600 bucks. It’s like that advisor just needs to like say hey, know what? We’re gonna skip our savings this month pay that sucker off like and then yeah 50 to 54 and full thousand dollars, so and then they’re gone Yeah, I would expect that
Matt Mulcock: It’s like a credit card. Go ahead and pay that off, yeah.
Ryan: those numbers to just steadily rise and continue later into life as our ages, as these younger dentists become our 41 year olds. Interesting thing there. Let’s look at personal real estate though. What’s the median house price these days, Matt?
Matt Mulcock: Yep, totally agree. It’s in the fours. want to say it’s 440, but let me, I will find that out real quick. Um, house price.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah, median house price. While you’re doing that, I’ll just start reading the brackets here so you can just lock that in. Ages, this is the age range again, 27 to 34 average or medium. Median or average, Cody? Median, median personal real estate. So basically your house, 299. Yeah, what’s the average home price?
Cody Barrus: These are all median numbers.
Matt Mulcock: Do you want the home price by the way? So, uh, existing home price is this was Q2 of 2025. Uh, and then they have a little bit of later data from October of this year, 415, 200 is the for existing and then for new homes, it’s about the same, to be honest. So it’s about 415 for the median home price in the U S.
Ryan: I mean, these two categories alone, it’s going to shape how people live and educate themselves. The student loans and housing, what people will do in the future, very different. Ages 35 through 39, average balance is 439. 40 to 44 is 474. 45 to 49 is where we start to see it declining. 424, 50 to 54 is 370.
Matt Mulcock: All make sense?
Ryan: 55 to 59 is 292, 60 to 78, 245. Here’s something to talk about. ⁓ How many people still carry mortgage balances when they’re done working? Which again, this is a net worth game. Your mortgage doesn’t have to, preferably it is, but it doesn’t have to be gone for you to be financially independent. Your net worth, net of everything just has to be big enough. And I mean, man, you’re just seeing people continuing to move housing.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah.
Ryan: even in their later years. These are just new trends that didn’t used to exist.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think this is a, an aha moment. This has been an aha moment. know when we’ve spoken or as I’ve talked to dentists after like they listened to podcasts, whatever we talk, we’ve referenced this before that. Like, although we understand ideally you’d want to be debt free going into retirement and you think of those things as synonymous, they’re actually not. And that’s not us advocating for having debt in return. We’re not saying like you should. It’s not, it’s not good batter. It’s just, it’s just a thing that we’re saying.
Ryan: Yeah. No, that’d be great if it’s all gone. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: It’s not a prerequisite. You don’t have to be debt free to call yourself ready for retirement. To your point, it’s it’s a bigger picture figure we’re looking at. and it’s interesting when we look at this in that older age cohort, you know, still multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars of those people carrying debt balances. Yeah.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Still carrying mortgage balances. We’re still seeing people in their 50s and 60s downsize but upgrade quality of housing and they’re just getting into more expensive housing in general is more expensive.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I also wanted to point out one thing here that I think is interesting when we just look at the data of the home price, the median home price in America being four 15. And then we look at this data. This isn’t surprising, but I think worth noting that the, the median, uh, real estate loan from four from 35 all the way up to 49 or that, that 45 to 49 age cohort, the existing Real estate loan is much larger than four 15, which what that means is, and that’s not the entirety of the value of the home. What that means is our clients and dentists in general, would imagine are buying much more expensive homes than the median home price.
Ryan: that’s the story that this ⁓ median real estate loan doesn’t tell is that for the most part, ⁓ dentist homes are just higher value homes. Eventually. It’s yeah. Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yep. Which again, they make a lot more money. So that’s not like that’s crazy and the reference group is far different than the typical American. So I think that makes it, we actually, we’re not going to ever, I don’t know, think we can even get this data, but it would be interesting to know if we could gather the median home price of this, if we could like get people to answer that question in the survey home value.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, very. Home value? Yeah, that would actually be really cool. We’re like, we’ll look you up on Zillow, dude. ⁓ Yeah. We’ll figure your stuff out. We’re dentist advisors. Yeah, I like this.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll stock you if we have to. Yeah. ⁓ do you want to hit practice? I actually think practice, we already had student loan practice. I also think it’d be great to, for us to finish with, ⁓ total debt balances. think that gives people, probably some, maybe some peace of mind to be like, I’m not the only one.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. was just going to say that. I’ll do practice and you can do total or one of you guys can do total. Okay. So practice, we’re going to start with age groups. Again, this is for practice loans. This is not, and just to be clear, this is practice loans, acquiring the practice. Usually practice loans are lumped in with like equipment, upgrades, everything. This is not like buying a building. We don’t have that on here. Every year that we’ve done this,
Matt Mulcock: I’m gonna let Cody hit total when you’re done.
Cody Barrus: Okay.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we don’t have that on here, I just realized.
Ryan: It’s only like a third of our clients actually own the real estate they’re practicing. It’s not even what you would think it is.
Matt Mulcock: Is that what we left it out Cody we just didn’t get enough data on it
Cody Barrus: Yeah, yeah, the data, I feel like it just didn’t reflect our clients that well. Like not enough of them own their own practice that the numbers were just off. Yeah. Or yes, or they’re building out the practice.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, every year we go through
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that makes sense. Through the building. Yeah.
Ryan: that, I’m like, the pressure that you have to own your building and the myth that the real way dentists build net worth is by owning commercial real estate that they practice in is just a myth because the data would show most dentists don’t do that and they still retire. Okay, so age ranges 27 to 34 average practice loan, zero.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah.
Ryan: Not in yet. 35 to the median. Yep. Median. 35 to 39 is 386. 40 to 44 is 268. 45 to 49 is 256. 50 to 54 is 120. And 55 to 59 is $50,000. So again, you see it peak what in your late 30s and then start to decline starting at about 40 years old. No, it’s pretty typical. Again,
Matt Mulcock: Let’s start median, median. Not surprising at all.
Ryan: adjacent to this category is like how great it is to work in an industry where you can go get so much money for your business and ⁓ You know just have it be you can be in your bank account in two weeks You can be brand new in your field and you’re like, here’s a million dollars go start a business, you know The liquidity and funding in dentistry is what makes it one of the best careers to be in so
Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yep. I think this is the column we have to emphasize. We’ve said it multiple times, but it’s worth emphasizing median because I think a lot of people will hear this one and they’re going to be like, hold up 35 to 39 is three 86. That’s the, that’s the median. So I can, I just have to emphasize that again, because average is much higher than this. Our average might even be like double this. I think it is. So, then the associates who don’t own practices obviously would,
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, that would make a lot of sense. Yep.
Matt Mulcock: Would would skew the data the other way, which means the median is getting much lower. So, ⁓ Cody, you to hit that total? We’ll finish up with that.
Ryan: Yep. Yep.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, let’s go for it. for total debt, I mean, this includes personal real estate practice, student loans, commercial real estate, if you have it from ages 27 to 34, the total debt is around 1 million. It’s like 1.026, which yeah, I think the average person would see that and be like, that’s scary. Like I’m in my early thirties with a million dollars of debt. Like that’s terrifying, but
Matt Mulcock: That’s all right. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Yep.
Ryan: of debt. Yeah. You would think that you’re doomed forever. huh.
Cody Barrus: Yeah, but
Matt Mulcock: forever.
Cody Barrus: like you were saying, Ryan, that’s not the case. Like as a dentist, you can go get a million dollar loan, a practice, like get your career started. It’s awesome. yeah. So ages 35 to 39, it bumps up to 1.2 million. And I think that makes sense. I think just more people in that timeframe are buying practices, right? Compared to 27 to 34. From 40 to 44,
Ryan: Yeah, do a million dollars in revenue your first year and yeah.
Cody Barrus: there’s another jump up to 1.6 million. That’s kind of the peak. And I want to get your guys’ thoughts on this. Why do you think that is in that age range? that just in that age they’re buying a bigger house? Maybe they’re buying into a practice at the same time. It seems to make sense.
Matt Mulcock: for peaks.
Ryan: Yeah, upgrading houses. Adding
Matt Mulcock: I, I was just going to say that too. Yep.
Ryan: more to the practice expansion.
Matt Mulcock: I think the expansion to the practice expansion to lifestyle, which usually means home and or second home condo, whatever it is. ⁓ I think you’re going to see that much more likely in that age range. I think this is probably age in general where dentists get the most itchy. It’s like, I think that’s, this is the itchy range. Yeah. They’re kind of bored or the, yeah.
Ryan: Lifestyle. Yeah. huh. Yeah. Really, really common. Yeah. Like they got money and they’re bored and they’ve mastered their career and they’re just like, what’s the point of life? Let’s spend some money. Let’s go get some Versace. You know what I mean?
Matt Mulcock: Like what’s next? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ryan and I know this well. Yeah.
Cody Barrus: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: I’m, I’m teetering on the edge of entering this age range and you’re on the, and you’re on the back end of that age range. So we know this well.
Ryan: Yeah, I was going to make a joke there, but we’ll save it for offline. Yep, go ahead. I know how to cure it.
Matt Mulcock: Ha
Cody Barrus: Yeah. All right. Next age range 45 to 49. It drops down to just under 1 million, 997,000. So, and then we’ll keep going 50 to 54. It drops again to 950 or sorry. Did I say a million on the last one? 999,997,000. Yep. Just a little million. 50 to 54, 948,000.
Ryan: Yeah.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, just below a million, yep.
Ryan: It’s just under a million.
Cody Barrus: And then 55 to 59, it drops to 760,000. then, last age range, 60 to 78, around 500,000. So.
Matt Mulcock: just keeps going.
Ryan: Which again, there’s a myth in personal finance out there that financial freedom is debt free, which, you know, hear this like, please, let’s get out of debt. That’d be great. You know, go and go into your retirement debt free. However, mathematically, that’s just not true. Mathematically, it’s the net of everything. That’s all you need. And so if your net worth pays for everything, including your debt, then you’re still financially free with a high enough net worth. So
Matt Mulcock: Totally, yeah, do it. Yep. So true.
Ryan: So what this would tell me, especially on the business and the practice side, it’s worth continuing to invest in your practices as you get older and your practice ages and you’re ready to transition it to the next dentist or group or whatever. It’s worth continuing to invest in it because it keeps up the value of that asset. Don’t be afraid of debt for things like that.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah, long as, keyword there we used on the last one that is worth emphasizing again is, with, with intention, you know, ⁓ which we just so happened to, ⁓ have a resource now available to our practice owning clients. Ryan, the, the, the lovely one and only Christine Uhen where we have these conversations all the time as our practice growth strategist to help dentists with these decisions. And I, we can’t, it’s just worth a plug there. Just how amazing she’s been for our team.
Ryan: Every conversation. Yeah. So what we’re talking about, we are not a dental consultant company. We have great partners so we can refer to. Yeah, really good. But we did hire a career veteran dental consultant. Been in the industry of dentistry for 30 years, consulting 20 years. And she’s here exclusively to just jump into our client cases and help them with growth questions and, you know, poll numbers. And she’s just a veteran of the industry who can see it all. And then when we see
Matt Mulcock: Amazing Partners. bigger problems that need like months of fixing, then we can refer someone to one of our awesome partners and get you the help you need. having her on our team to jump into some of these questions that, you know, aren’t typical financial advisor territory is every conversation that clients have with her that I was like, Whoa, that just changed my perspective on a lot of things. So shout out Christine. Christine listens every episode too. So what’s up Christine? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Matt Mulcock: Yep, Shout out. She deserves a shout out. She’s been amazing last thing I’d just say on the debt and I’ll, I want you guys to, we give Cody last word officially. ⁓ but I just think it’s hopefully encouraging for people to feel like, not like in a misery loves company type way, but the dentist can see and hear like, multi like seven figure plus is the median out of the gate, like early in career. I just think that hopefully is encouraging for dentists to be like, this is just a, this is normal out of the gate. Yeah the territory.
Matt Mulcock: B, we see this data and we’re saying this is still such a viable, amazing career. Still worth it. Yeah. Completely. Yep. And people getting near retirement still holding six figures, multiple six figures in debt. It’s okay. It’s a net worth game, not purely a debt game. ⁓ yeah, Cody, you have last words, but I’ll just say, ⁓ if you have any questions about this, as always, the easiest thing to do is go to dentistadvisors.com and click the book free consultation button and then get us on the phone.
Matt Mulcock: Ask some questions, tell us your story. We’ll help get you in the right direction for sure. So thanks for listening and ⁓ go click that button. You know what mean? Go to the website, like and subscribe, click the button. Cody, round us out.
Matt Mulcock: Yeah. huh. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll just, I’ll kind of say to close this out. I, I think it’s important to know everyone loves to see this data. They’re like, and a part of it is they love to compare themselves to, you know, the people around them. I think it’s just important for us to emphasize, like everyone’s situation is different. You know, the most common answer to a question that someone asks their financial advisor is it depends. And it just depends on their financial situation. So obviously take these numbers. You can kind of compare where you’re at as a dentist, but also remember that everyone’s situation is unique. So just remember that.
Matt Mulcock: Okay, this guy just grand slams it out of here. all right. We did it. hit it. Eyes closed one handed. He did it. Thanks, Cody. Thanks everyone for being here for another year of wrapped and we’ll see you next year. Bye bye. So we’ll see you later this year. All right. Okay. Bye.
Keywords: dentist financial decisions, retirement readiness, income trends, dental industry metrics, wealth management for dentists, financial trends, age brackets, spending patterns, savings, debt management, student loans, inheritance, financial planning, practice loans, cash flow.
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