How Does a Dentist Know When They Are Ready to Retire?

On this episode of The Dentist Money Show, Matt, Jake, and Will dive into what it really means for dentists to be retirement ready and why it’s about much more than hitting a savings number. They explore why many dentists retire later than the average American, how spending habits can delay financial independence, and why starting the planning process early is critical for long-term success. Tune in to learn how balancing clear financial systems with meaningful relationships, hobbies, and a gradual transition out of work can help dentists build a retirement they’re truly prepared for and excited about.

Related Readings

Why Don’t People Save For Retirement?

---

Podcast Transcript

Matt Mulcock: Welcome to the Dentist Money Show where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m a guy named Matt and I’m here with Jake and Will. What’s up guys?

Will: What’s up?

Matt Mulcock: How are we? We’re not saying happy new year. We’re not saying that we’re well beyond that, especially in this. We can’t say it. We’ve seen each other multiple times. No more happy new year. By the time this comes out, it’s definitely not happy new year. It might be like happy Valentine’s day or something. I don’t know if we can talk about that. Jake, should we just spend a few minutes talking about Valentine’s day and your thought? And I’m just kidding. We’re not going to do that. we have some hot takes on that.

Will: No, yeah, it’s past that. And we’ve seen each other already this year, so we can’t say that.

Will: Yeah, yep.

Jake: Hey, if that takes ya.

Matt Mulcock: ⁓ this will be a fun one. We, we were just talking about this before we jumped on talking about, ⁓ retirement readiness. And, ⁓ this is something we’ve talked about so many times in various kind of mediums, whether it be speaking at events or podcasts or webinars, but something that I think bears always kind of repeating and revamping and discussing, especially with changes that we’ve made on our side.

Matt Mulcock: Uh, some, we call it rebranding? I don’t know what we want to call this guys rebranding of some of how we, how we approach. A little revamp, a little rebrand, uh, for long time listeners of the show, you know, probably very well the title total term that the element total term we’ve revamped this going into 2026 and beyond. We’re wanting to be a little bit more straightforward with this, uh, calling it retirement readiness. And that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Will: Yeah, a little revamp.

Matt Mulcock: today before we jump in guys, just any thoughts you guys have as we jump into this topic.

Jake: This is just, this is a topic we cover often. And I think for good reason, this is the end game, right? When usually when we’re constructing a financial plan or talking to someone about their finances is how can I get to a point where work is optional or I can retire or I have financial independence, whatever word you want to substitute or use there, right? That’s usually like the back of the mind, like the long-term plan is what do I need to do to get to a point where I am free to either work or enjoy time with my family or do whatever I need. ⁓

Jake: And so this, the reason we revisit this often is it’s just, this is what pretty much all of us are working toward, right? In some form or another.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. The cornerstone of what we do. Right? Like this is, this is it. This is what we do. If you could boil it down to one thing, Will, any thoughts on from your side?

Will: No, exactly the same idea I saw a funny comic the other day that I used in a presentation that said something like it was a financial advisor reviewing somebody’s plan and it said hey I’ve reviewed your data and my best recommendation would be for you to die a little bit earlier and you know like I think that is obviously stupid but it proves the point that you know we don’t no one’s escaping this so either you work until you die

Matt Mulcock: Hahaha.

Will: or you start planning now so that at some point you can be ready for retirement and you can have this optionality later on to do whatever the heck you want to do. And whether or not you decide to actually stop working or you want to keep working, but also just have flexibility to hit that alarm clock and say, can do whatever I want today. That’s what this is. That’s this goal. And, you know, you should start working towards it as early as possible. So you can at least just know, is, you know, am I on the right track?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I love that. That’s a funny meme, well, and I’m glad you brought that up. in another life, I worked in a very traditional generalist type firm and I will talk about this, but I think one of the issues that we’ll discuss around this very topic is this like, ⁓ false precision wheat, like this illusion of false precision that we fall under of like these Monte Carlos and getting exact into the like,

Matt Mulcock: Like you said, in this meme, like you need to dial earlier, like we know it’s a joke, but I think maybe the underlying thing we need to be keeping in the back of mind at all times is it’s really hard to actually plan for this to a precise date or dollar figure. We’re going to talk a lot about like directionally, you get planning for this and, ⁓ but things to also be aware of, like not overoptimizing. Cause it’s really difficult to know the details of this.

Matt Mulcock: And even knowing what you want in the future, I think is really hard to know.

Jake: It’s also a new concept, retirement. I mean, this is the boomer generation. Baby boomers are probably the first generation that’s really had to deal with retirement, generations before they either had pensions. And even if you go back before that in human history, like we talked about, most humans just didn’t live long enough. You kind of worked and died in kind of your mid-40s or 50s, and you just kind of worked your whole life, or your family took care of you, and you didn’t have to deal with this. This really is a new thing we’re dealing with over the past 20, 30 years. Like how do you set yourself up to work?

Jake: so you don’t have to work if you don’t need to, maybe enjoy the back half of your life. So I think still like in the whole span of human history, like this is a relatively new thing that we are still learning as we’re going with retirement.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yep. So true. And I think with that being said too, Jake, to that point, not only is it a new concept, but I actually think there’s this other thing hanging out here of like COVID shifted a lot of things with this as well. Like not only work culture, but retirement culture and like our ideas around retirement. We don’t, that’s an episode for another day, but I just think it’s an interesting thing to bring up that it is a new concept for sure.

Matt Mulcock: And the thoughts and culture around this from generation to generation, I think is already, is evolving pretty quickly. Like pretty quickly.

Jake: I feel like I talk to very few people who are like, want a traditional retirement. I want to just work one day and then not work the next. So much more like I, you know, talking to Dennis specifically, or like, can I own my own practice? Can I cut back to a day or two a week and still be a little bit involved, be part time, maybe work as an associate somewhere? And I want to keep doing something after 50 or after 60. And that’s, I feel like that’s way more common now than I just want to sell my practice and be done, you know, tomorrow. So that’s also, you know, there’s nuance to this.

Matt Mulcock: Yep, totally agree.

Matt Mulcock: Totally is. And this is why we’ve, we’ve hesitated in the past. We’re using this term because we want to speak in the terms of what we hear, which is most everyone talks about retirement and kind of knows in some form what that means, but really our definition and what we’re shooting for is really work being optional. We’ve always talked about this to that very point. So let’s jump in. think we want to highlight the main problem here. If we could sum up again,

Matt Mulcock: If we could sum up our work at dentists advisors is what we do in one kind of core focus. It’s this it’s how do we get dentists to work being optional as soon as possible? How do they get them to retirement readiness as soon as possible? And this is kind of, ⁓ supported by a core problem in dentistry that we’ve seen for over a decade, really two, all going on two decades. Now this has been persistent. And the main problem is that the average dentist retires.

Matt Mulcock: This has been consistent year after year after year, the average dentist retires seven to eight years later than the average American. So according to the ADA, the average dentist retirement age is 69. That’s pretty much, you know, give or take a year every year. It’s about there, 68 to 70, but the latest reading was 69. The average American retires at 62. And that gap has been persistent for a long time. So that is the core problem that we’re trying to solve. If we could just boil it down to one thing.

Matt Mulcock: Is accelerating that timeline. That should not be the case for dentists with all the advantages they have over the average American. Let’s talk about first, as we talk about this problem guys, just reasons for this. What, what things do you, do we see in our work? Go ahead, Jake.

Jake: Well,

Jake: I will have people tell me usually when I bring up the stat, you know, something else is, well, is this just because we love dentistry? Like dentists can love dentistry and their practice owners and they can work a little bit longer. And so that’s why it’s 69 instead of 62. I think that’s a valid point. But what you’re ignoring is there are also a lot of other professions and a lot of other Americans who still like to work and want to work well into their seventies and that number is still down. So I think that just applies across all professions.

Matt Mulcock: I know what you’re gonna say, hit it. Let’s get that out of the way. Yeah. Yep. Totally valid.

Jake: You can still do whatever you want if you like it really late into your life. And so I think it cancels out a bit there.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. My problem with that, Will, how many dentists do you know? We know a lot. We’ve talked to a lot. How many dentists do you know that are like, yeah, I want to do this till I’m 69 or 70?

Will: Yeah, very few. Yeah, not even though. Yeah, it’s. Sure, because mostly like I want to be done at a minimum by 65, you know, and that’s kind of the I would say the traditional retirement age, right? The average American may retire at 62. That’s fine. That’s, know, I think even a little early in my opinion, but that’s it just shows that that even a five year gap, 62 to 69.

Jake: The young ones, the ones who are two years in.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. That’s where that that’s where that logic falls apart, I think.

Jake: Yeah.

Will: there’s something there, right? Like there definitely something there. I think to Matt, your point, the reasons like, genuinely think, and it is like kind of shocking to hear, ⁓ dentists retire later because they make more money than the average American and you know, a lot more. Yeah. Right. And you have more autonomy and you own your own business and all those things that you’re like, it should work out. However, there are some things that come along with owning your own business and being a dentist. think the first one is just organization complexity.

Jake: Not just more, like multiples more. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Like 5X, yeah.

Will: ⁓ I genuinely think that it’s harder for a dentist to understand when they’re ready for retirement than it is for an average American because maybe the average American just has like one 401k and a couple bank accounts and they spend less and they need less. And it’s just not as complicated of a retirement situation as potentially a dentist who has multiple retirement vehicles, multiple account, multiple different savings vehicles, other assets, business.

Will: ⁓ illiquidity in the business, real estate, building, all those things. So I think it’s just a genuinely more complicated picture and it’s harder to track throughout your life. So if you’re not organized throughout your life, we’ve seen it so many times where dentists come on board later in life and the balance sheet just looks like a mess. And it’s like really hard to unravel and understand even where this starting point is and how much progress we’ve made from year one to year 15 before we can even understand how ready they are for retirement. Does that resonate with you guys?

Matt Mulcock: 100 % Jakey have any thoughts on that?

Jake: Yep. No, I agree. think another one, we’ll throw a couple of reasons out there, I think will lead to kind of the biggest one that we all think about there. Another one that we talk about often is it kind of go to that point, Will, of being a little bit unorganized or maybe not having 100 % tension with your finances is dentists are, we talk about this a lot, they are attracted to maybe a new shiny object, right? Not being organized, causing them to be maybe what do need to do to retire? Should I? put my money in Bitcoin or buy this rental property or do this business that my brother-in-law is doing. Or again, being a dentist, are just naturally people like pillars of your community. People know who you are. They know dentists make a lot of money. You are going to get pitched more things. Maybe other people are a target for some of these pitches, which most of the time are not awesome. so I think there’s yeah, like along with organization, there’s like that distraction, chasing a new shiny object, not being intentional.

Will: Yeah.

Jake: getting pitched a bunch of different things and there’s no cohesive strategy or plan, right?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I think you guys pretty much hit everything. mean, we can highlight specifically, you kind of referenced it. Well, well, the crux of all this we’ve already talked about disorganization is like where all like, it’s like the mother problem. And then all the little baby problems come from, come from, ⁓ being disorganized and not having like an actual process system and plan for this. ⁓ but I think specifically it’s worth bringing up again. Again, will you mentioned it, but the spending figure. So dentists on average make five times more, I think about five times more than the average American. And we’ve seen dentists who make well over that. But when you make more, you tend to spend more, especially again, it’s exacerbated when you don’t have a plan, a system and organ being organized. And this is kind of like, we’ve, failed to identify what, how many numbers of blades are on this sword here, but it’s like a quadruple edge sword where it’s like you make more. you spend more, which means you have to save more.

Jake: That’s it.

Matt Mulcock: Like, which means like, it’s just this like kind of never ending cycle of when you spend a lot of money, you have to save a lot of money. And because you spend a lot of money, it makes it harder to save a lot of money. Like it’s just like, again, kind of eats you alive if you don’t have intentionality around your spending.

Will: Yeah.

Jake: Well, that’s what it is. There’s a lot of attributing factors to why dentists retire later, but the main one is you to spend more. And so therefore you have to save more, which we’ll get into the calculation and things, but you spend more.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, you do. They do. But if you spend too much, then you can’t actually save. It’s just, it’s like this vicious cycle like Matt says kind of. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. Yeah, it really is. It’s a vicious cycle. And that’s really, that is it. You’re right, Jake. Like if you had one thing to point to, it’s they spent, they spend more than the average person by far.

Jake: Which is okay again, we are not the spending police and we talked about multiple times on the show and in our work that we do is spending is a good thing, right? All of your money eventually is going to be spent. We want to live with intentionality. We want to have a balance of preparing for the future while living life today. But the fact of the matter is the more money you do spend again, which is not a bad thing, you just need to save more money, be way more intentional. And it’s often just again, saving a lot more than the average American has to save. Like Will, you brought it up. lot of like the average Americans can like…

Matt Mulcock: And it should.

Jake: put money into their 401k, maybe max out their 401k, do that for 30 years, and you’re probably going to be in an okay spot for retirement. Combined with Social Security, you’re good. Dentists need, because they spend more, they have to replace a much bigger lifestyle, which is great. Again, that’s why you became a dentist, to live an awesome lifestyle. You just seem to be way more intentional and save more than you think for that retirement.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. And that’s it. You’re because you have a lifestyle that’s different than the average American that at its worst is going to be like the, the fight club version of like your stuff starts to own you type of thing. But even at its best, like we’re saying it’s totally fine. It’s awesome. Awesome. But it’s going to take a ton more to support that. Then to your point, will the typical American saving in a 401k.

Will: It’s awesome. You drive nice cars, you go on nice vacations, you do things that you want to do. Yeah, it’s a good thing of planning. Yeah.

Jake: Do it.

Matt Mulcock: Getting some social security. That’s another thing. If you really think about it, the percentage of your income. Expenses covered by social security as an average American. I don’t know the actual number here, but it’s probably pretty significant. Like for, for an average American family who’s getting social security in retirement, you know, that could cover 75 % of your spending in retirement where for a dentist, it is like.

Will: expenses. Yeah. higher. Yeah. Maybe 10 percent. 20 percent, yeah.

Matt Mulcock: No, we’re close to that 10, 15, 20 % of your lucky.

Jake: Max benefits right now, think if you’re like, if you retired in 2025 or 26 now, sorry, that’s my first faux pas of the year in 2026, the average at like max retirement benefits around 3,500 or so per month is what you can like get 3,500 to 4,000, which is a good amount for a lot of people. Like, hey, that’s awesome. That can cover a lot. As we said, for the dentist, it’s just not quite covering as much of your expenses.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s not. Sure, sure, not a dentist. Yeah.

Will: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Um, okay. So I think we’ve highlighted again, the main, the main thing here being the main problem, the main thing we do, the main thing that every dentist is thinking about when they’re engaging us or whether they’re just thinking about financial planning is am I on track to make work optional? Am I on track to retire? We’ve already identified there is a consistent problem in dentistry outside of the people who just want to work until they’re 69 or 70. That’s awesome.

Matt Mulcock: ⁓ the one for everyone else who doesn’t want to do that. There’s a problem here that we need to, we’re constantly working on solving. ⁓ let’s talk about actual retirement readiness. Like what does this actually mean? ⁓ I think, and I want to get your guys’ thoughts that there’s high level kind of two parts of this. There’s the money side that we’ll talk about, like the actual spreadsheet. Like what is the, okay. What are the numbers tell me when I’m retired, like ready for retirement?

Matt Mulcock: And then there’s like the, whatever you want to call it, the real life emotional side. Is there anything else we’re missing guys that you’d think about when it comes to this term of retirement or being ready for it?

Will: No, I always say even retirement, but even just a financial plan, there’s two parts to it. Quantitative, which is the math and the qualitative, which is the not math, right? Like that’s the not number stuff. And I think it’s super important because you have to look at the numbers through the lens. You have to look at the quantitative stuff through the lens of the qualitative stuff because that’s what actually tells the story of what you’re going to do with all the money that you saved, all these things, right?

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yep.

Jake: Which is the crux of financial planning, right? We always say this personal finance is way more personal than finance. probably act like we’ll handle some of the spreadsheet and number side of things. But in the end, the whole goal of all of this is just to live the life that you want. Or like, how can we get the money that you are making help fulfill your goals and your lifestyle and what you’re wanting to do there? And so we’ll talk, I think we’ll go over some numbers first and then get into the back house. Some of them may be more the qualitative. What do you want to do with your life? But ⁓ yeah, you guys are spot on.

Will: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I couldn’t have said it better. You guys nailed it. Those two sides of it. ⁓ let’s talk first the spreadsheet side. This is probably the most, this is, it’s the most straightforward part of this discussion. When you talk about retirement readiness, not saying it’s necessarily easy to get there, but I think it’s the simplest, just kind of like, it’s a, it’s an equation basically. ⁓ I want to share for anyone listening, ⁓ or watching on YouTube, cause that’s a thing now. People watch all their stuff on YouTube. ⁓ I’m actually going to share.

Matt Mulcock: And we can kind of, ⁓ describe this for anyone listening and not actually watching this. I’m going to share our revamped scorecard. So we call it our financial. Can you guys see that? Okay. So our financial hygiene chart as what we’re, what we call it, it’s, ⁓ specifically 12 indicators. If you’re listening and you’re like, cell sounds a lot like elements. Well, it.

Matt Mulcock: It is where we’ve revamped it for, ⁓ for 2026 and beyond, but it’s the same concept, right? So it’s 12 indicators that are evaluating, you know, your financial health here and now. And the ultimate one, and we’ll do a series on this, right? We’re going to continue to do webinars and podcasts on this, but the ultimate one being retirement readiness, as we’ve talked about here, that’s the whole point of this, of this discussion.

Matt Mulcock: Jake, do you want to break this down of like what we’re looking at here? What is retirement readiness from a math perspective?

Jake: Yep, so it’s a simple equation. When you do retirement, when you want to stop working, you need to replace your lifestyle or your spending. People think sometimes it’s your income, you don’t need to replace what you’re actually making every single year. You just need to replace how much you spend. If you spend $100,000, if you’re not making $100,000 of income, you got to figure out how do I get $100,000 from other places for my investments or whatever it be to help cover my lifestyle. So how we figure out your retirement readiness is we’ll take your net worth,

Jake: Which is all of your assets that you have if you subtracting out all of your debts. This is like your overall where you stand number like if you were to cash out of everything and move to Hawaii, like what could you take with you if you’re so your practice sell out of your house all of your assets, you know, and pay off all of your debts. What’s left over? We take that net worth number you divided by your annual spending and that essentially lets us know how many years worth of spending do you have built up in assets? It’s like if you were to stop working today, move to Hawaii, right? How long could you live off of what you currently have. And that’s like what shows up in this retirement readiness number that we have in this financial hygiene chart for you. We can probably talk about this and eventually where you want to get to is 25 to 30 times your annual spending. That’s like the back of the napkin. If you just want to check where you stand, that’s where you want to get you to feel comfortable. Okay, I could stop working. I don’t need an active income at this point. My investments and the growth for my investments will cover my lifestyle once you can get to that 25 to 30 times your annual spending.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I was going to say the reverse side of this, where if you’re a younger listener and you’re thinking, well, I want to understand how much wealth in today’s dollars I need. How close am I? You just said it, Jake, you could basically, if you know what your spending is right now, you can just multiply that by 25 to 30. We’d started about 25. And then again, if you want to be extra conservative, go to 30, but 25 times your current spending, you got to be accurate. Like what is your spending?

Matt Mulcock: That number will be the wealth in today’s dollars that you need to be financially independent, to make work optional. So we want to keep this again, as we highlighted, like this is directional. There’s a lot of nuance to this, but as a younger listener or someone out there being like, just how do I start to track towards this? We think this is a really simple kind of target to start considering. Will any thoughts on this?

Will: just maybe why it’s 30 ⁓ or 25 or what that number actually like translates to, right? I think so like if you took that number, you know, 30 times your annual spending and you figured, you know, just, you know, let’s just throw out a number. Let’s just say it’s, ⁓ I don’t know, $7.2 million, which I think is spending 20 grand a month, 240, I think that’s the right number. But don’t do math on a podcast on live data. ⁓
Matt Mulcock: Hahaha!

Will: So let’s just say it’s that if you put that money into an account that got a 3.3 % return, it’s going to kick off enough money for you to have basically kick off the interest to spend, have your spending amount covered via interest in perpetuity forever. So the 30 number specifically is one we’ve used in the past to highlight like, I don’t know, infinity mode, beast mode maybe sometimes called.

Jake: Peace where you technically don’t have to ever dip into your nest egg. You’ll just generate, you know, getting a modest return. You’ll generate enough interest that you could live forever.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Yeah, it’s conservative. It is. mean, if we, uh, for the financial planning nerds out there, know you listen to this sometimes because we’ve talked to you. Uh, you, you’re very familiar with this idea of the 4 % withdrawal rule was made famous in the nineties in our nerdy space. And that’s kind of been the kind of the guideline for retirement is that 4 % rule to your point.

Jake: It’s just been proven out if you have like a 60, 40 of equities for a stock portfolio over the past 30 to 50 years. Essentially like that’s the safe, like if you take that amount from your portfolio, that 3.3 % every single year, your investments are gonna grow at least at that or beyond that. You will never have to dip into your principal. If you want it, you can live for 300 years, right? I guess essentially off of that lifestyle there. Now we can talk about again for the nerds out there, that number’s probably been updated and this is why we have like that 25 to 30 range. 3.3 % is actually pretty conservative. New data shows that you can safely withdraw like four and a half to five percent, right? Depending on where you’re at. And so, yeah, that 25 times your annual spending is a 4 % withdrawal rate, which I think is a good baseline. I like 25. Feels solid. You technically you can retire with like 16, 17 if you don’t want to leave a nest egg, if you want to dip into some of your principal. That’s where some of the nuance can come in depending on your situation. Also, depending on when you retire.

Will: four or five.

Matt Mulcock: increase your risk too.

Jake: Like if you want to retire at 30, you probably, or 40, you probably want a 30 retirement readiness score. Anyway, there’s a lot of things we could dive into.

Will: You need, yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, a lot of nuance here. again, we’re, we’re speaking generally here to a general audience. And obviously this is a very much, depends on your situation type discussion, but I’m with you. Like I’ve told this to people, the conversation begins around 20 to, in my opinion, if you have a retirement in a score of 20 or above, we can start to have that conversation and what the trade-offs you’re making around. Like you said, Jake, like, are you trying to leave a big nest egg? Is it, leaving a legacy of financial legacy and important to you, or is it not that factors in, ⁓ also like what is, what does your retirement look like? How young are you? You brought that up as well. ⁓ the other thing I will add to this too, if you’re out there like doing this on your own, which that’s great. If you’re kind of like writing numbers down and figuring your stuff out, ⁓ personal residence is another factor here that we would say when we talk about net worth divided by your annual spending specifically, we would say you’d want to use your usable net worth, which would not include your residence. Not to burst bubbles, but yeah.

Jake: You always have to live somewhere. And sorry for the California and the New York people. ⁓ You just have to live somewhere, right? And so it’s as we technically are not selling your house to fund financials. Maybe like in the rare case, if you are a California resident and you’ve built up $4 million in equity in your house and you moved to Nebraska, right? And you cash out some, that can be the case. I think that’s extremely rare. ⁓ But yeah, don’t want to include the house, unfortunately.

Matt Mulcock: I know they’re like, what the heck, but you do.Yeah. Yeah. To your point, you need somewhere to live and anyone who believes that, well, well, I live in this big, nice house now I’m going to downsize and that’s going to be way cheaper. I’ve yet to see maybe, maybe one person I can think of, ⁓ in like that I work with that is actually executing on a plan like that. I’d say 99 % of people, even if you downsize, ⁓ you don’t down quality and

Jake: You don’t down price. Yeah, you can downsize short, but it’s.

Matt Mulcock: You don’t down price. Well, especially with what’s going on with real estate, pretty much across the board, just bank on your housing being about the same, even if you were to like move or do something different. So just, again, if you’re trying to get super accurate, I would be removing your personal residence when you’re trying to factor in your actual retirement readiness. Will any thoughts on that? I’ll go ahead Jake.

Jake: It is an asset. We want to keep track of it and you’ll probably pass it on to your kids. It’s just not an asset for retirement in most cases.

Matt Mulcock: Sure.

Will: Yeah, I’ll bring in some more nuance too. mean, there’s so much you can talk about here, but I’ve had clients who say, don’t really want to bank on my practice sale, right? Like I don’t want that to be part of my like number and maybe, you know, that’ll be the cherry on top. And so that, you know, you got to factor that in or you got to factor in like, what if I have, what if I my building and I want to keep renting it and I don’t want to liquidate it to go into this big nest egg thing that’s going to kick off three and a half percent return. And, know, there’s a lot of this calculation is meant very much to be directional.

Will: We have a lot of clients who are getting towards this number, or maybe like, you know, five, 10 years out from retirement. We have other more robust tools that are able to map out retirement a lot better than just this retirement readiness number. And we genuinely mean like, this is a really good number to give us directionally the right, you know, the right thing to shoot for. But when you get closer to retirement, there is a bunch more nuance that having a good plan.

Will: or planner or somebody that can help you kind of walk through all of the details and all of the nuance and all of the changes in cash flow and growth rates and inflation rates and what happens if you keep some income, what happens if you have passive income, sell buildings at different time, like there’s lots of little things that can change.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, yeah, there’s, go ahead, Jake.

Jake: I’m sorry, Nandu. I want to talk about the practice thing if that’s okay for a second because I think this is interesting to me. I talked to this about you guys the other day. ⁓ First of all, if you don’t want to count your practice and your retirement projections, sure, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to but yeah, if you just want to be really conservative, good for you. But I do think there’s traditionally been a sense of okay, I’m going to buy my practice and this is going to be a huge piece of my retirement when I do sell. This is going to make up my practice in my business. I’m putting all my time and effort into this.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Jake: And this is going to make up a huge chunk of what I need for retirement. I don’t know if that’s the case these days. The main reason being so our median client spending is about twenty thousand. Right. Am I right there around there. Eighteen to twenty you know. Yeah. Per month. And so that’s putting it to about you know 220 to 240 a year type of thing of where you stand. So if we just do our previous calculation OK if like a median for our clients and what their spending is at if you spend twenty thousand dollars a month.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, in a range 18 to 20 per month,

Jake: at 25 times that number, you need about $6 million. It would be your just broad retirement readiness number. This is what you need in assets. And so then if we just think in my mind, like, yeah, well, the average like just single location practice that’s out there, even if you’re doing awesome, let’s say it’s worth 1.5 million. Let’s just say like you have a really awesome practice and you’re crushing it and you can sell it for 1.5 million. It’s like after taxes and fees and things you pay on that,

Jake: If you need 6 million and you sell your awesome practice for 1.5, like that makes up 20 % of what you need for retirement, even less depending on what your fees and things are there. so, yes, I really just feel like, yes, it’s an asset that I want to count on, but it is not nearly enough to even collect. It’s not even close to like what you need. So you need to be doing, I guess I’m round out way, like you need to be doing a lot of other things outside of just your practice value to prep for retirement.

Will: If you have any loans or anything left, yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Will: The asset, yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s a good point. The word of the day here is nuance clearly. ⁓ cause there, there is a lot of, depends on the situation. So to your point, Jake, what situations, guess let’s hit this. What situations where, what did Dennis say? Or we recommend you don’t count this at all. There are cases I can think of like you’re in a super rural area and you’re grandfathered into ⁓ a ⁓ Delta premier type.

Matt Mulcock: PPO that is now no longer there. And I’ve had the, I’m that’s very specific because I’ve actually heard this from multiple dentists before where they’re like, there’s no value here. Or at least the value I can sell this practice for is just really not, there’s nothing I’m going to just walk away from this thing. That’s a rare case, of course. ⁓ then. Yeah.

Will: Kids, kids that want to take over. That’s a thing I hear a lot, right?

Jake: Yeah, kids, yeah, family.

Will: Like maybe they don’t end up selling it like at a full price to their kids or even close to that.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Totally. On the other end of the spectrum, Jake of your, of your, ⁓ of your example here. And I know you’re speaking to the middle, but on the other end, we do have quite a few dentists we work with who are building like, we’re not going to call them DSLs, but like multi-location type empires that it’s like, this is actually going to be something that will be a significant chunk of your retirement plan.

Jake: Sure. Yes.

Matt Mulcock: Um, whether you’re staying on board is like managing the thing, or you’re going to sell this for multiple six figures. We’ve seen this multiple times, but I like what you’re getting at is like, okay, typical dentist here’s kind of typical that as we work with, uh, it’s more of a cashflow asset over your career than it is going to be this greatly appreciated tech stock that all of a sudden you’re going to be able to cash out and live on. And I think that speaks to.

Matt Mulcock: what we’ve talked about so many times, which is like, this is going to cashflow for you really well. That’s the whole, that’s the whole name of this game. What you do with that cashflow and how efficiently you transition that cashflow from your practice into other assets and grow those assets is going to be the main driver of whether or not you’re going to be able to get to retirement readiness at 50, 55, 60. Say like, that’s it is what you choose to do with that cashflow. I think that’s what you’re getting at.

Jake: Awesome. Yeah, you said it better than I could. This is where crypto comes into play, you know, by the way, just kidding.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. This is what we talk about how crypto is going to save that now. Yeah. I think that’s a really good point though. Like this is more of a cashflow thing. You still should count on it, but it’s not this one time event you should count on it’s over time. Anything else, Will you want to add to that or any add to any of this on the kind of quantitative side of things?

Jake: Yeah.

Will: I think it’s basically hit all the nuances you could hit.

Matt Mulcock: we hit all the nuances of that, of the number side. ⁓ let’s, let’s talk about the emotional side of things. The, the qualitative things that will, or Jake, said it, and we say this all the time, as you mentioned, personal finance is much more personal than finance. At the end of the day, it sounds obvious, but I think it’s obvious for reason or it’s cliche for a reason. Like this is to be on your terms. And this is what this all comes down to is, and I think this is probably the hardest part of this is even understanding what you actually want out of your money, out of your retirement. Um, uh, we’re doing, so I’m going to plug this really quick. We’re, hitting a third, the third annual Dennis money summit this year in midway Utah. Uh, the theme of this is practice on your terms, but this could be retire on your terms. Like that’s what this all comes down to. I want to get your guys’ thoughts. What comes to mind when you think about everything outside the numbers, when you talk to clients or dentists or think about your own life, when it comes to the emotional side of retirement.

Will: I think it’s, yeah, like it is something that I don’t think really you can know until you’re there, honestly. I think we ask, I’ve had a couple of recent client meetings where I’ve asked them to describe their ideal like retirement, right? Like, can you just describe it to me? Tell me what’s like a day in your life or a week in your life in retirement. And it’s all over the map, right? Like it just totally depends. Some people are like, well, I still want to work three days a week because I don’t really know what else I’m going to do.

Will: So I’m going to have to do something and I can’t golf every day. you know, I, you know, been maybe talk to Jake Elm and he’s like, like, I can golf every day. Right. So it totally depends. I think there is this, I don’t know, maybe like a little bit of fear around like, what am I going to do with my life? mean, dentists specifically are, are, you know, most of their career, you’re in an office with other people working in a chair. And it’s like, you’re not.

Jake: You can, some people can, yeah.

Will: You have to practice retirement. We say that a lot, like practice retirement, maybe get to two days a week and see what it’s like, right? See what you want to do with all your free time. But it’s a, it’s an interesting emotional phenomenon that you don’t really think about because when you think about retirement, for the most part, you’re thinking about the number side and you’re not really focusing on what it actually means emotionally.

Jake: We’re recording this at the beginning of the year for whenever this comes out. But one thing I actually have heard probably like seven times just from people in my conversations in my life and clients I work with over the past week has been I always ask them, how was your holiday Christmas break? Did you take off the last week of the year? And the common thing that they’re all saying to me is I’m happy to be working again. ⁓ the break was great, but I’m happy to be back in my routine. And that was these people just like week and a half.

Jake: off right between Christmas and New Year’s essentially and after a week and a half to like I’m happy to do that in my routine. Imagine like getting like focusing our time and be like, well, we got to figure out what you need to do for months and months and years on end, not just a week and a half. And I do think there is comfort, like you said, Will, and that routine and that work and the purpose that it gives us. We have to figure out if you’re slowing down and retiring how that still works in to your life.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen this same thing, Jake. I’ve seen this not only with, with clients and dentists, but you know, my personal life, like I’ve seen this with my dad going on 77 this year and been retired for a while and financially independent well before that. And it’s, yeah, he, it’s super difficult to like know what to do with your days. We’re going to jump to this next section here. ⁓ cause I think this leads right into it perfectly like an underrated risk of.

Matt Mulcock: this whole idea. ⁓ but I want to, I want to bring up one other thing. I don’t know where this fits, but I think it fits here. Cause I would think one of the issues too, that people face when it comes to, maybe this fits more on the numbers side. I don’t know. You guys tell me, but I think one of the struggles people have too is they come from this phase of accumulation for so long. Like it’s,

Matt Mulcock: You know, we talk about it. They know it. got to save more. Where do I invest? What accounts do I use? Roth versus traditional. Like it’s all in that game of accumulation. And when you transition officially to the game of distribution, the rules all change. And the number one issue, I think with the rules changing is you never really learned how to spend money and especially money that you’ve saved.

Matt Mulcock: Like now you’re pulling from a different source. It’s not your human capital, but it’s the, it’s the assets you built up. And I have seen so many times that is really hard for people. Have you guys, what are your, have you guys seen this?

Jake: Yeah, you know, it feels good making money. Feels great. Right. Watching that number go up in your bank account and in your brokerage accounts, like watching that, that gives people purpose alone. Just like accumulation feels awesome. And you know, what doesn’t feel great is watching the number go down when you take money out like that. This feels like, like I worked for like my entire being is make money. Right. That is like my whole purpose for decades. And now I’m switching to my purpose isn’t to make money.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah! That does, yep.

Jake: It’s trying to enjoy life and that is, I think that’s a really harsh transition, like you said.

Will: And I think without a plan, like without actually understanding, like, I think a lot of people get into retirement and, and like have full blown anxiety around like, am I, is this going to last? Right? Like I think nobody with a plan, somebody without a plan would get into retirement and start seeing that number go down and be like, Holy cow, I might live till I’m 95. And like, what am I going to make it? Make it right. It’s very important to have data that tells you at that point.

Will: Yes, you’re going to be okay. Yes, the plan supports this. Yes, the numbers say that this can happen and it’s okay to have this happen. That should hopefully allow the anxiety to at least subside so that you can say, I’m okay. I’m good. I can do this. Cause it, totally agree with Jake where it’s like that it almost, mean, I think about me doing transitioning to that now that would feel terrifying to start seeing my, like my accounts go the other way. It would like, really would. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Jake: or even turning off the income tap. It just feels awesome to have a paycheck come in and to make money every month and to give that up. That’s why people, I think, push back their retirement and keep pushing it back, because it feels scary to not have money coming in.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I think you hit on something too, Jake. I was at an event last year and I said this, it just, we got into a conversation after I spoke. It’s kind of a smaller group Q and a, and I said something that I still stand by and I want to, I want to say it to you guys again. I think you guys have heard this and tell me if I’m wrong. I, and I, cause I really believe this. I don’t think being rich is that cool. I don’t, I think getting rich is cool. And I think most like it speaks to what you’re saying, Jake. Making money and working towards retirement, whatever that looks like for people feels great. And it’s a great proxy for purpose. It’s like you don’t even need a purpose necessarily. You don’t need to dig in and be like, okay, what is this actually for? Cause you’re just like, I’m grinding and I’m working and I’m getting rich and I’m, you know, I’m making money. I think this is where people tend, I’ve seen this so many times. People have like existential crises at that point of like, okay.

Jake: feels awesome.

Matt Mulcock: I’m rich, I’m good, I’m independent and the numbers support it. Now what do I do? And I don’t think people actually put in, I mean, we’re speaking like the definition of first world problems, but I really do think it’s an issue of, and I really don’t think being rich is that cool for most people. Once they’re there, it’s the actual act of working towards it that people find their purpose in.

Jake: This is good because I was actually waiting for something to disagree with you on you guys on on this podcast. If like we agree too much. I do think being rich is pretty cool. ⁓ But I I get where you’re coming from of you know, I actually thought about this of why it doesn’t feel awesome. And it’s like, OK, I’ve reached my first million dollars in net worth or two million or whatever that looks like. You reach these financial milestones or maybe it’s an income milestone. And I think part of the reason of why it doesn’t feel great, like once we get there, is because it’s a slow build up to it, you know, where it’s like you’re like, I love being rich.

Jake: There really isn’t a difference in having $900,000 of net worth or a million dollars of net worth. you’re kind of your lifestyle and things have been the same and you’ve had time to process it. I think we all in our minds are like, man, if I could have X amount of money right now, like if you could just adjust me automatically to that, that’d feel awesome and it’d feel great. But in real life, it’s a kind of a slow build up to it. And so that’s why it doesn’t feel like it’s like, I reached this income milestone to this net worth milestone.

Matt Mulcock: Well, you’re adjusting. But it’s like you’re adjusting. It’s like you were kind of close to that anyway. I kind of already at this point and so it just feels normal and things. But I do agree with you, Matt. I think that making money feels better than having it. Right. The process of it feels better because then it’s the classic thing. This is like money is so funny and so complicated. And this is why this conversation is fun to me is it also like once you have it, you worry about losing it.

Jake: It’s like, I’ve been worrying this whole time about making it now that I have it. It’s like, okay, how do I invest it the right way? How do I hold on to it? Do I keep growing with inflation? Yada, yada, yada. And it’s, you’re just always worried about something with the money you have.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Go ahead, Will.

Will: I think it’s good. love the I think to your point Matt like the the act of getting rich is This dopamine hit it’s this it gives you I guess you could say like I like what you said proxy Kind of like a purpose proxy in a way like maybe and maybe it is somebody’s purpose, right? But I think Yeah, I mean that’s that’s that’s kind of the point I guess in life is to make money and and you enjoy your life I guess I don’t know like ⁓
Jake: It is, it’s everyone’s.

Matt Mulcock: Okay. Really quick though. Here’s this, there’s like, Hey, I’m not going to use the word again. I’m not, I’m going to do everything I can to not use that word. We’ve been saying this entire time, but here’s, don’t think we’re disagreeing too much. we’re really not. I’ll rephrase what I said. Being rich is not as cool as people think it’s going to be when they’re getting, when they’re trying to get to it. That’s what I think. It is not as cool as you think, especially really quick, especially nuance Sure. Yeah, the view from the top of the mountain isn’t as cool.

Jake: Mainly because…

Matt Mulcock: If your goal is the actual number, whatever you have in your head versus you taking it a step further and saying, what does this money actually do for me in my life? Like, I think if you’re actually taking that step of being like, I’ve defined my purpose, I come back to this all the time of Carl Richards. He wrote the one page plan. We have a lot of engagement with Carl’s awesome. And I’ve never forgotten his purpose that he wrote in that book. And it’s still the same. I just talked to him the day he’s like, yeah, it’s still the same. Uh, it is.

Will: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: time with family, outdoors. And so if you’ve done the work to say money serves this thing in my life, having a lot of it’s freaking cool. It’s awesome. But if it’s just like, I’m rich, I have a ton of money in my bank and you haven’t done the extra work, I think most people get left with an empty feeling once they retired and they’re like no longer making it. They’re like, what am I doing here?

Will: Time Outdoor. Yeah, I love it. Well, I think that’s an underrated risk. Like we’ve said is you don’t like if you’re, if all you’re focused on is your office and your job and your work, you under invest in these other things in your life, purposes, hobbies, interests, relationships, and then it makes you feel like you don’t have anything when you retire because now your whole identity, which is I’m a dentist and I take care of these patients and now I don’t do that anymore. Feels, feels stressful. Like there’s definitely some.

Jake: The ironic thing about this though is that person who just puts all their time and effort into their business is probably going to be the ones that are successful and lucky enough to have this problem. And this is like, this is the ironic thing about money is the potential, generally the people who are lucky enough and ambitious and successful enough to make all this money do have that be their sole priority because that’s what it takes. It takes a lot of work to get to these places that we’re talking about. Oftentimes to the sacrifice of other things that you’re then switching your priorities to.

Matt Mulcock: There’s a yes. Yes.

Jake: in the retirement or a different phase of your life. And so it goes back to that, that transition can be tough or difficult. ⁓

Matt Mulcock: Yep to that point, Jay, we’ve talked about this so many times to you, to that point. And I think you hit on something. Personality is so important here. Something that people don’t talk about enough when it comes to retirement and satisfaction with retirement or any of this stuff is personality driven. But to your point, and we’ve seen this so many times, the pair, the great paradox of this is the people who are going to be the wealthiest and financially independent, the soonest are the same people with the personality that won’t enjoy it when they get there.

Jake: Yeah, it’s funny.

Will: Elon,

Matt Mulcock: is.

Will: I said something that like Elon Musk’s works like seven days a week. Yeah, he’s just grinding.

Jake: Because that’s what he loves. He loves doing it. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: That’s his purpose. And by the way, I guess what we’re saying here is that’s okay. Like just be honest with yourself. That’s what you want. And that’s gives you purpose. That’s great. Like don’t, don’t live out someone else. This is what we said at very beginning of this whole section is like, you define what this means for you. Don’t be ashamed if you’re like, I am going to work till I’m 75 because I freaking love it. This is what I want to do. That is totally fine. Exactly.

Jake: Yeah, if you love that, it. Yeah, if you love that, do it.

Will: Yeah. Make sure you have a good workout and health routine if you want to get to that: point.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, exactly. well you hit on something I want to end with this part and then we’ll kind of wrap this up, but investment that one of the underrated risks that we see too is failure to invest in things outside of career, ⁓ hobbies and what, okay. What am I like? Like we talk a lot about the money side of things, but it’s like, are you making investments in other things? Relationships, hobbies, interests. I’ve seen this again. I’ll bring up my dad again. He didn’t really do that.

Matt Mulcock: Much. So he just worked and grinded and hung out with his family. He was an amazing dad worked his butt off, but he didn’t really have hobbies. And I think it’s taken him some time post retirement to get into other things that he’s had to cultivate later on in life. And it was a huge challenge. I think this happens quite a bit. If you’re not taking the time to invest in those types of things, like Jake’s going to be fine. Cause you know, he’s got golf, but

Matt Mulcock: Do you guys see this too, if you’re clients and dentists out there?

Will: Yeah, I like you put this on this outline thing, which I thought is an awesome sentence that I’m just going to read retirement readiness improves dramatically when there’s something pulling you forward, not just something you’re trying to escape. I think that’s pretty like profound that I feel like a lot of dentists are trying to escape dentistry. You know, it feels like you’re escaping from a prison that’s on a deserted island. So like you get out of the prison, but you’re still stuck on this island and you know, you’re like, what do do now? Right. And

Will: So I do think if there is a purpose, if you have cultivated these hobbies and relationships and things that give you meaning, it’s gonna be a great retirement. You’re gonna have plenty of things to do and people to build relationships with and things to explore. But if not, then it is gonna feel like an escape with not really any plans after that. So I that was an interesting point.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. think retiring from something is way different than retiring to something to your point. Like that’s, that’s huge. That’s a mindset. That’s a, and that takes time that takes, that’s part of this process of what am I retiring to? I think escapism. I think that leads to a lot of the data that’s out there that is scary with people in retirement, like, you know, early deaths, know, then you think, ⁓

Will: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: depression, anxiety, like there’s a lot of data that shows people when it comes to, they’re not putting this time in retirement can be disastrous for a lot of people. Jake, any thoughts on this? Not that don’t want it. We’re going to end on a positive note, but any thoughts?

Jake: No, my only thought would just be, I think this a part of a solution to this again, a lot of these the funny thing about a lot of these problems that we face are just innate human problems, right? That don’t have an easy solution. And it’s really just like practicing it. I think that’s something that we can do is okay, if I’m working towards this financial independence, can I start practicing now what I want to do? I think, well, you brought this up where it’s like, maybe I cut back a day at the practice or try and do this thing that I want to do or whatever it may be and like you can simulate some sort of, okay, like I’m not just focusing on the single thing. Can I round out my life a little bit? And that can look different to everyone. I think all of us really enjoy working and get a lot of value out of it. And we’re big proponents of work. And that does create a meaningful life. would always say like working on something is important. ⁓ But just having more balance, think, right? If you’re just saying, okay, this is not my one sole objective. Do I have other things that I’m interested in? Can I kind of build out a more rounded life and can I do that before I hit retirement age? Can I just kind of practice this life beforehand? I think it’s helpful.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, totally agree. think, ⁓ retirement for most people, the actual act of financial independence is a long ways away. So if you can’t enjoy the process, not to sound like cliche and cheesy, but it’s true. Like if that’s the ultimate thing you’re shooting for, you’re going to be disappointed. And like, you’re not going to be satisfied till you get there. You’re going to have a rough go. It’s going to be a rough go. It’s like, you’ve got to find a way. And this is why we talk about shifting your mindset around this being a process and a planning process as opposed to like a concrete plan. Like, yes, you’re shooting for a specific outcome, but really the focus should be on the system you’re building to get there and enjoying that system while it’s running. ⁓ we’ve quoted James clear lot, but he talks a lot about this of like, when you, when you have a system based focus versus an outcome based focus, you can be satisfied anytime your system is running as opposed to like, dissatisfied until you achieve your goal. think that’s a huge critical mindset shift because for most people, this is a multi-decade approach. Unless you’re winning the lottery or inheriting money, it’s going to take a long time for, for 99 % of people out there. Will give us your final words of thoughts of work.

Jake: That’d be nice. Yeah. I just saw a quote in the spirit of happy new year, ⁓ which I will just say one last time before I stop saying it. ⁓ I saw a quote that said, do something today that your future self will thank you for, which is kind of in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions and things. I think that we talked about a lot on this podcast, but I think that can be applied to. I just saw Do something today that think of your future self. Think of fast forward 2010, 15, 20, 30, 40 years down the road. And like, what is that person going to wish that current version of yourself did? Is that prepare for retirement? Is that cultivate hobbies and relationships so that you’re ready for retirement in that aspect? You know, there’s the quantitative side of retirement, the qualitative side of retirement. Start working on both of those and your future self is going to thank you for it.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, love it. Perfect way to end this. if you are out there listening, thinking, man, I need help with this. I’m disorganized or I need to figure out if I’m even on track for retirement and being ready for retirement. ⁓ we are here to help. So Dennis advisors does this all over the country, work with hundreds of dentists. We would love to talk to you and hear your story and see how we can help you get to retirement readiness as fast as possible and make you work optional, on your terms, can go to There’s a book free consultation button. We would love to talk with you. ⁓ but for now, Jake, Will, thanks for being here and sharing your words of wisdom. Everyone. Thanks for listening till next time. Take care. Bye bye.

Keywords: retirement readiness, financial planning, dentists, financial independence, retirement planning, personal finance, work optional, financial goals, retirement strategies, wealth management.

Retirement Plans