Watch the video below from Ryan Schulte, a partner in financial advising from Envision Wealth Group. Ryan has been working with dental students and dentists for many years. He says one of the biggest things people are noticing across the country is the mess being made from lack of personal financing. Budgeting is important! The digital age makes it too convenient to venmo your friends, set “auto-reload” to your Starbucks account app, or buy pretty much anything by synching your credit card with the Target app. On average, people are only saving 3-4% of their income. We should be aiming for around 15-20% in savings. Shocking, but with hard work and dedication, you’ll be happy you did!
Watching this video reminded me of the financial session presented by Todd Cockrell, DMD at the 2014 ASDA National Leadership Conference entitled, “Debt Management and Financial Decisions for the New Dentist.” His presentation stressed the importance of having a clear vision. He spoke about preparing yourself today for the brighter tomorrow. Dr. Cockrell says a big problem is newly graduated dentists not saving enough money after graduation. “Only 1 out of 100 dentists know the number or amount of money they must save each month to reach their goals and achieve their milestone events in their career.” According to his analysis, it will take the average student between 10-25 years to replay their loans. The actual number will depend on which repayment plan you choose.
Standard Repayment : pay equal monthly payments over a maximum 10-year period. Higher monthly payments resulting in a lower total interest cost over the life of the repayment period. This plan would be good if you are trying to lessen the total interest cost of your loans.
Extended Repayment : This elongated plan allows you to stretch your repayment over 25 years. Monthly payments are lower over the span of the loan. Total interest costs will be much higher over the time of repayment.
Graduated Repayment : An incremental increase in loan repayment over years. Your first years of repayment will be only paying back your loans, as payments increase over years. Amount of years allowed for repayment varies.
Income Contingent Repayment : Based off of your yearly income and loan money that still needs to be paid off. This plan is not as popular as IBR, or income based repayment. This plan must be applied for each year, where your income is reassessed. The maximum time for repayment is 15-25 years. Find out more here.
Income Based Repayment : Payments are made based on 15% of your discretionary income. This means the amount of household adjusted gross income which exceeds 150% of he poverty level in the state you live. Not for usual repayment. To qualify you must be going through a “partial financial hardship.”
Want to know more?
You can download Dr. Cockrell’s presentation by clicking here.
Do you have any financial questions? Ask them in the comments below or e-mail them to [email protected]. We’ll answer them in a future Money Monday post!
~Neek LaMantia, San Francisco, ’16, electronic editor
