Money and Happiness!

[trypmo]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Once you get out of dental school, for the first few years you are in practice, how much income will it take to make you happy?
Think about it for a little bit before you answer. What is the least amount you could earn yearly and still count yourself as being happy to be a dentist?

1. Income is per year and BEFORE taxes.
2. Count only net income, NOT gross (must subtract out all running costs of your practice).
3. Money you use immediately to pay off your debt counts too.

I'm putting lots of choices because I don't know how fine-grained the spectrum of responses will turn out to be.

Similar questions have been asked in past, I think, but not quite exactly this way. I worded it really carefully. Read the question again before answering.

This Weekly Wednesday Poll has been brought to you by... um, anybody wanna sponsor these? 😀 j/k

 

[aphistis]

I've answered this before. I'll be satisfied if I'm able to keep a sound roof over my and my family's heads, decent food on our table, all of our other "need"s and a few of our "want"s, and some to give the less fortunate. What's the dollar figure on that? I don't know, and I'm not particularly interested in assigning it one.

 

[trypmo]

Originally posted by aphistis
I've answered this before. I'll be satisfied if I'm able to keep a sound roof over my and my family's heads, decent food on our table, all of our other "need"s and a few of our "want"s, and some to give the less fortunate. What's the dollar figure on that? I don't know, and I'm not particularly interested in assigning it one.

I saw your answer before, and I agree with your philosophy in principle (not sure how many others do 😉 I'm kinda curious to see what the trend turns out to be), but I think it's still interesting to think about the numbers. For example, how nice do you want the roof over your head to be? Do you plan to have lots of kids and have to have a huge house and lots of food, clothes, etc. for everyone? Are you planning to move to NYC, or rather out to some rural area to an underserved population? All these things factor in. I mean, don't vote if you don't want, but I still think it's an interesting question. So there. 😛

 

[Aaronpsr]

trypmo,

I think you are right...there are a lot of things that have to be considered. For example, I already have a wife and two kids...and to say I would be happy my first few years making a teachers salary would be a lie. Hey, I'm going to be in severe debt...and I have put my family through severe poorness in order to be able to return to school like this in order to do something that I love. The first few years (after DMD) I would like to show my family that it was worth the heartache and the wait for them. Still, my estimate of what would make me happy was much lower than some other voters...

I think this is a good poll...keep them up!

 

[aphistis]

Originally posted by trypmo
I saw your answer before, and I agree with your philosophy in principle (not sure how many others do 😉 I'm kinda curious to see what the trend turns out to be), but I think it's still interesting to think about the numbers. For example, how nice do you want the roof over your head to be? Do you plan to have lots of kids and have to have a huge house and lots of food, clothes, etc. for everyone? Are you planning to move to NYC, or rather out to some rural area to an underserved population? All these things factor in. I mean, don't vote if you don't want, but I still think it's an interesting question. So there. 😛

I didn't want to skew your data, so I didn't 😉 Though, I do think it's worth pointing out that all the confounding variables you've mentioned here will only serve to further confuse the results you get, making them even less meaningful. The regular polls are a good idea, though; keep 'em coming! 😀

Edit: As of this writing, I further note that most of the voters so far seem to have some pretty grandiose prerequisites for their happiness. Unless we turn out to be the Rennaissance generation of dentists or people develop some more realistic expectations, there are going to be a lot of unhappy kids around here come Christmas morning.

 

[Zurich5]

Money does buy happiness, don?t disagree. If you think otherwise then you are completely wrong. I voted for the $300K+ column. If I don?t make that much, I?ll kill myself. 😀

 

[trypmo]

Originally posted by aphistis
Though, I do think it's worth pointing out that all the confounding variables you've mentioned here will only serve to further confuse the results you get, making them even less meaningful.

Even less meaningful than they would've been already? Well, I'm certainly glad you're not being obnoxious about it or anything -- otherwise, I'd tend to start gettin' pissy right about now. 🙄

I suppose I just have to disagree with your opinion that it was worth pointing out. 😀


BTW, you split an infinitive... HA!!

 

[drPheta]

Enough for me to end up earning enough after taxes, loans, etc. to save and start a family and support it without any problems.

More is nice, but I'd be unhappy if I can't provide for my family, considering all the work, effort, and investment I've put into my career. I personally believe we deserve to earn marginally more than any 4 year fresh graduate makes working for a corporation. They get to start saving in their 20's and enjoy their comfortable lives while we continue to bypass the most influential (monetary, social, personal, familial) time period in our adult lives.

So a nice house with 4 bedrooms, 3 car garage, 2 bath, 1/2 acre of land, 3 dogs, 1 cat, 2 kids, filet mignon every so often, lobster other times, entertainment for the family and friends, excellent school district, upper middle class suburbia, full insurance coverage for the entire family, retirement for my parents, a house for my parents, and anything else that I would love for my family to have and enjoy is what I hope for.

I admit it. I want to live an extremely comfortable life. I've seen my parents struggle too much with arguments over money issues, worrying about their future (let alone mine and my sister's), on the wrong end of raw deals, suffer from injuries and aging, and work too hard for this investment to not have its returns.

Caviar isn't my thing. But this is an opportunity to give back to my parents what they deserve, and it's an opportunity to keep my own family (when I start one) from having to deal with those frustrations and seeing the fear I saw when I was younger.

 

[Zurich5]

Originally posted by drPheta
I've seen my parents struggle too much with arguments over money issues, worrying about their future (let alone mine and my sister's)

Good post drPheta, I've seen the same thing. Not the best of times.

 

[aphistis]

Originally posted by trypmo
Even less meaningful than they would've been already? Well, I'm certainly glad you're not being obnoxious about it or anything -- otherwise, I'd tend to start gettin' pissy right about now. 🙄

Relax, Turbo. All I meant is that nothing on SDN should be taken with more than a grain of salt. Try posting a poll asking whether the world is going to end tomorrow and see what kind of results you get 😉 Scientific, they ain't. But fun? Sure. I won't stop you if you want to stir up an indignant froth, but I was just trying to have a little fun too. Truce?

 

[Dr.BadVibes]

Wow...a lot of dreamers on SDN....I thought that since most people go into associate work for a couple of years, that associates make b/w 80-100K??

 

[trypmo]

Originally posted by aphistis
Relax, Turbo. All I meant is that nothing on SDN should be taken with more than a grain of salt. Try posting a poll asking whether the world is going to end tomorrow and see what kind of results you get 😉 Scientific, they ain't. But fun? Sure. I won't stop you if you want to stir up an indignant froth, but I was just trying to have a little fun too. Truce?

mumblegrumble... okay, truce... grumblemumble... I guess your tone upsets me every now & then, but no frothing, indignant or otherwise, was intended.


Y'know, I think I do kinda like the "Turbo," though... 😀

 

[Dentalbound]

I definitely agree with what everyone else has said as far as simply wanting a decent home in a good school district, good food, good insurance, reliable transportation, etc. If I could have that within my first few years of finishing school I think I would be extremely happy. However, few people seem to want to put a dollar sign on these things. I would say around 125k would provide me with the means to accomplish (or at least start accomplishing) most of this...thus I think I would be pretty pleased with an initial income around that. But, that's not to say anything less would make me suicidal.

Dentalbound
CU class of 2008

 

[atlas6]

i dont know how to vote, but i want 80-100k

 

[Supernumerary]

I can't remember where I saw this study. It seems like it was fairly recently done by a couple of psychology grad students. Basically, they set out to test the old adage that "money doesn't buy happiness." Interestingly, money did buy happiness over a narrow range. They found that people's happiness increased as their earnings increased up to a level of about $50,000/yr. Above that $50,000 point there ceased to be any correlation between wealth and happiness. So I guess as dentists, we can be pretty confident that our career will provide all the happiness money can buy. 😀

 

[trypmo]

Friday bump 🙂

(Interesting, it's lookin' kinda bimodal)