My Two Cents: Finance for Teens & Young Adults

Adulting with Money: From Student to Dental Practice Owner

• Mahima • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Mahima sits down with Ruhi, a young dentist who just bought her own practice. They dive into things we all need to deal with - credit scores, saving vs. spending, and how to start investing. Ruhi keeps it real about the trade-offs, the wins, and the lessons she wishes she learned earlier. 



Mahima Ramachandran (00:01)
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of My Two Cents. I'm your host, Mahima, and today I'm excited to welcome a very special guest to the show. Ruhi Patel is a dentist based in the Bay Area where she has been practicing for the past four years. After earning her dental degree from Midwestern University, she returned home to serve her local community and recently took the exciting step of purchasing her own practice. Outside of dentistry,

Ruhi explores her creative side as a content creator in beauty and fashion, and she also models on the side. Balancing entrepreneurship, healthcare, and creativity, she's passionate about growing her practice while continuing to share her journey in ways to inspire others. Ruhi, thank you so much for joining me.

Ruhi Patel (00:50)
Thank you so much for having me.

Mahima Ramachandran (00:52)
So just

to jump into the first question, you just bought your own dental practice. Congratulations. What was the very first money decision you had to make and how did you know you were ready to start this journey?

Ruhi Patel (00:59)
Thank you.

So I always knew I was ready to own my own practice. I had always envisioned being a dentist as having my own practice ⁓ Dating back to undergrad when I used to work as a dental assistant to kind of get a feel for what the field is like I had seen all these Dentists that I worked for and they own their own practice and they work for themselves So I thought that was normal and that is exactly what a dentist does I didn't know dentistry to be a field where you work for other people ⁓

So I'd always envisioned that for myself. ⁓ In terms of ⁓ being financially ready or the first money decision I had to make was ⁓ I had to decide how to come up with the amount needed that banks need to see. So basically when you're getting a dental practice, ⁓ banks are very generous to dentists. They really don't need any down payment. ⁓ They'll give you the full loan that you want ⁓ for the entire amount plus two months of working capital.

But what they want to see is that you have at least 50,000 or 10 % of the asking price of the practice in liquid cash and assets. So that's something that I had to start building and make sure I had that when I started looking for practices and looking for a loan.

Mahima Ramachandran (02:31)
Very cool. So backtracking a little bit into your undergrad years. In high school, you know, we hear a lot about student loans for, you know, just for us to think about in the future. I know dentists and doctors usually have to take out a lot of student loans. So just to ask, like, how did you manage your student debt and what would be some advice you would give to someone who might need to take loans for?

Ruhi Patel (02:54)
That's a really good question. ⁓ one, because I chose to go to a state college, ⁓ my parents were able to help me out financially. ⁓ Midwestern, my dental school, that is where it got extremely expensive. So I'm really thankful that I had the financial assistance of ⁓ paying for school when it came down to my undergrad years. But for dental school, I did have to take out a loan. I can tell you what not to do. So I took out a private loan. ⁓

And in the moment, in that time, it felt great. It was back in...

2016, 2017, a long time ago. So ⁓ COVID was in a thing, interest rates were great. ⁓ And I got a loan that was a variable interest rate. And I had asked advice from a lot of people in order to do this. So when you look at a variable interest rate, it goes from a very low end to a very high end. And low is very low. So our thought process was what could possibly happen that the interest rates are gonna shoot up? ⁓

I

went with it and it was a really low interest rate. It was amazing. And then I started paying off some like very small amounts during school and this was like maybe like a hundred dollars a month maybe like twenty five dollars a month. It was very little but it was just something towards it which was nice. And then when I got out when I graduated COVID had happened and

it ⁓ started impacting interest rates. So first they kind of paused repayments ⁓ during that time, did it if I wanted to. I could have put towards my loan. My interest rates were not that high. So my thought process was put more into the stock market because stocks were low and it just felt like a good time to kind of pump in, which right now it's not a bad decision ⁓ because I have gained quite a bit. But what I would have done is kind of weighed out the two.

I going to make more money in the long run investing in the stock market, ⁓ then I'd do that. But if now my student loans are really high, ⁓ the percentage, so it makes a little bit more sense to put more money towards my student loan. So to put it into perspective, ⁓ one of the years my partial loan is at 9%. That is extremely high. Now if I put into something safe like an ETF, ⁓

percent gain is really not worth it to me so I'd much rather pay that off.

Instead of doing that, it's gonna be refinancing for me, but really take a look at it. And I know in the moment, sometimes when things seem stable in economy, ⁓ it feels right to make such decisions, but I think trends in history have shown that something or the other happens down the line, and you need to prepare yourself for those crazy rainy days. But that'd be my number one advice. Really look into what you're getting. ⁓

If you can minimize your loans and minimize your loans, that doesn't mean pay for everything. I think make some financially smart decisions. If you can invest and you're gonna get more money out of that, then do that. There's a lot of evaluation, I think, that goes into it and that's really important. So I will say I am glad I didn't graduate with half a million in loans. That is what the cost of attendance is to go to Midwestern. So again, getting that financial help from my family was really great. ⁓ I was pretty dead set on taking

that $500,000 in loans and my goodness those repayment that repayment would have been crazy at the 9 % so I'm glad but really evaluate and see what's best for you

Mahima Ramachandran (06:35)
Yeah,

totally. I can, you know, you never know what's going to happen. So definitely from your experience, think weighing out your options is something very important for all of us to think about.

Ruhi Patel (06:46)
Yeah, 100%.

Mahima Ramachandran (06:48)
So

going to, you know, you've just opened your own office, you get to, you've got to pay your staff, your rent, your supplies. How do you balance all of that with paying yourself? Do you follow a budget for your business? Like, you know how we're told to do with our own personal money?

Ruhi Patel (07:05)
Mm-hmm.

So I got really lucky. I had a business that was up and running and it was ran very successfully. And all I did was have like a transfer of title and now it's mine. So we kept all the systems in place because they work really well. They don't spend excessively. So when you're buying a practice, I had some advisors evaluate the practice. Their spending, how they pay their staff, their budgeting, just how they're doing, the health of the business. And this one was run ran really well.

⁓

So I kind of kept that. ⁓ We at our practice, just because of the type of practices, we don't really cut back on the nicer materials. We think that if a patient is paying the premium of seeing us, we need to give that level back to them. it's kind of, I say, I think it's part of our cost of seeing them. So for supplies, we kind of stick to it. ⁓ Let's say we want to try something new. ⁓ Our first thing

is let's buy a couple, not in bulk. Because we want to see if that's something we like. You can start using a product and absolutely hate it. Now if you have a box full of it in the back, you just wasted all that money. ⁓ Another thing in dentistry is like equipment like ⁓ scanners or ⁓ x-ray machines or you know, ⁓ getting a new dental chair. ⁓ So these are things that if it breaks, it just needs to be done. You have to do it. But if it doesn't, it can wait and it's working.

then get the use out of it. When it comes to scanners, over time you're going to get your money back because getting a scanner means you're not doing the extra lab work in the back and your labs are cutting back on that fee. So you're saving a little bit there. So you just kind of have to evaluate if that's worth it. As for paying the staff, so number one thing, I have a CPA. My CPA evaluates

the health of my business. So we meet about once a month, if not bi-weekly at the moment, and we kind of evaluate the numbers and see how the practice is doing. And then that's how we decide, do we need to make changes in hours? Why are we doing so much OT if that's the problem, know, over time, if that's a problem? ⁓ Really take a look at what's helping the business and what's hurting the business. But if overall the business is doing well, we're not really making any changes.

⁓

There are some changes that we are looking to make such as ⁓ remodeling the doctor's office and the front office. But that's not a decision we're going to make until the business is very stable and there's a backing for it. And then I can pump that extra money that's generated into... ⁓

Renovating these things so that's kind of how we make the decisions and the budget plan that we follow is a little similar to that I think it's very important to have an Emergency fund the last thing I want to do is pump in my own money into the business ⁓ If my business is making me money I want to start building a emergency fund for at least three months of my working capital Which I kind of have a rough idea of what it is so I want to build that and then after that when I have that safe backing I can start

putting into other things. But one of the most recent things is we have this ultrasonic cleaner and that needs, we need a new one. it has to be done. You can pull the trigger, you can get it. But that's kind of how I do it.

Mahima Ramachandran (10:39)
Very cool. So I know you just mentioned you have a CPA, so you have someone to work on financial decisions with. for teens and young adults, we often, you know, do budgeting to figure out like how much to spend on a paycheck. So what would be like the teen version of, you know, the way you track your office money? Or do you have any tips for teens or young adults for tracking and spending money?

Ruhi Patel (11:04)
That's a great question. So I wish I could give this advice to my younger self because I made money and my parents just never had any responsibilities on me. So I want to spend the money. I was like, I don't need to spend their money. I can I can spend it myself or like not waste their money. Looking back, that was a really bad idea. I think a really good budgeting plan that I started following actually.

closer to undergrad and grad school was a 50, 30, 20. And I learned this through a podcast called Choose Fi. I really like it. It's a...

It's a nice way of putting your money in buckets. that 20 is your savings or your investments. The 30 is your wants and the 50 is your needs. I don't know if, you know, maybe a teen has a extracurricular activity that requires money, then put that into your wants. If there's needs, if you're helping out with bills, put, you know, a little bit towards that. You will find that when you're younger, your bills, don't have to

many bills right as a teen I didn't I didn't have any so I could put more into these buckets so what I would have done is if I really enjoy traveling and I senior year comes and I wanted a little world travel I should have put a little bucket of money into that ⁓ into that travel bucket you know and then ⁓ have a little bit more for your college savings have a little bit more for something else whatever it is that you really want to

kind of invest into. I do think it's kind of important to live in the moment as well because

We're gonna start resenting money if we're just saving it for the future and not using it in the moment but I think it is a thoughtful decision Kind of live within your means don't go overboard like I did But if I could go back if I could go back the number one thing I would do is kind of compartment compartmentalize all the buckets of money that I wanted To kind of put into and there they would have been an undergrad fund there would have been a little bit for dental school I

don't know what dent I could have made for dental school payments but ⁓ it would have been nice because there is a living cost that comes to everything. If you don't live in the same town as your school, you're going have to pay some kind of rent, some kind of food, something. So ⁓ I wish I did that. And another really big tip is don't just go into your bank saving account and do it. Get a high yield savings account because I had my savings in ⁓ a Bank of America savings and that percentage is so tiny.

I wasn't getting anything in a year, but now that I have my money in a high yield savings account I'm seeing so much more money in a year from my savings. So that's another thing let your money work for itself

Mahima Ramachandran (14:04)
Totally, totally, So, going back to ⁓ starting your own dental practice again. So, like you said, it was expensive. You had to take out a loan. so how important was your credit score in making that happen? I think a lot of teens don't think about credit score this early on, but it does make a difference in taking out loans. So I want to get your perspective on that when taking a loan out for the practice.

Ruhi Patel (14:32)
That is a really good question. ⁓ It makes a huge difference. If your credit score is bad, no one is going to give you the loan. it, look at your credit score, at least for your dental practice, look at it as this is your safety net. This is how they're going to know that they can trust you. ⁓ If it's bad, that means you're probably overspending, not paying back on time. ⁓ You've probably done things that are

not safe with your money and that's resulted in a poor credit score. And that poor credit score tells the bank that you are not a safe person to lend money to. So for dental loans, I know there's a threshold and it's pretty high. I believe it's 700, I think. But if you're even a little below that, I don't...

think they're going give it to you. That or you have to put a lot of money down for them to say, hey, you know what? I trust you and I will give you the loan. But let's say your score is low and they still give you the loan. Well, your interest rate that is going to be sky high. So if you have poor credit or a poor credit score, okay, let's take two examples. So there's a person who has a credit score of 780 and there's

person who has a credit score of 650. Now these two people go to get a car loan let's say. There's one person that gets you know given the economy maybe a four or five percent interest loan or interest rate. Then there's a person with the poor credit score who gets about a 10 percent interest rate and this is a real life example. This is somebody I know who's gone and had a 10 interest rate given to them and then there's somebody that I know who has a really good credit score and had a very low

⁓ interest you get given to them. So while it doesn't seem so important, okay it's interest, it's whatever, it matters. This is extra money that you are giving away when you don't need to. That's money that could be in your pocket that you could be growing in your investment accounts and seeing more of it in the long run. But it's very important.

Mahima Ramachandran (16:45)
Yeah, yeah,

I you totally like answered my next question, which was going to be like, how can using credit like hurt like in the wrong way hurt you later on when you're buying something like a car? So yeah, I think it's really important to think about what you want to do down the road or any large investments that you want to make in the future. That's why your credit score like matters so much very early on.

Ruhi Patel (17:07)
⁓ 1000%. ⁓ Something I would also recommend for ⁓ younger adults, and this is something I've seen in real life, ⁓ or teens, honestly, I don't know what the age limit is for a credit card. ⁓ But believe it or not, a lot of my classmates in dental school did not have a credit card. ⁓ What that meant was they didn't have a credit score. So when they got out and they wanted a credit card, all the banks were like, no, we don't trust you.

We don't know how you manage your money. So it was really tough for them to do that. ⁓ My dad is very big on money financing and all that stuff. So he had set us up at a very, very young age. We were teens, probably in our later teens, but with a secure credit card. So if you can come up with money, let's say it's even $1,000, even $500, you come up with that much money in cash, you go to a bank and you ask for a secure credit card.

they will hold on to that money that you gave them and that they will give you a credit limit of let's say you gave them 500. They'll give you a credit limit of 500 or let's say you gave them a thousand. They'll give you a credit limit of a thousand and then what you do is ⁓ you safely and responsibly use and pay off that card. So let's say it's thousand dollars. You put five hundred dollars on it in a month. Then you pay it off for it. Let's say you put two hundred and you pay it off in a timely manner at the end of the month.

In one year, they give you that money back, but now you are building credit at a very young age and that is so important. then down the line, there's a lot of factors that go into a credit score. One of them is the age of your credit.

And if you start at a younger age, your average age when you're older, it's going to be larger. ⁓ People are going to give you a, they're going to trust you and they're going to give you a higher credit limit. And how that helps is it decreases your utilization. Now when you get a little older and have more purchases, if your credit, ⁓ revolving credit is 10,000 and you're spending 1,000, well your utilization is very, very low. ⁓ So that's some per-

of it and all of this stuff positively can affect your credit score if you're doing it right. But that's my biggest piece of advice.

Mahima Ramachandran (19:30)
very important.

So shifting a little bit to a couple questions on yourself and like long term thinking. The first question being, so instead, like you said, of dentistry being working in someone else's office, you chose to open your own practice. Did you ever think of it as like an investment for yourself? And how did you think of like risk versus like reward?

Ruhi Patel (19:35)
Thank

I still get scared.

I get terrified sometimes. ⁓ It's a lot of what-ifs that are in my head. ⁓ But realistically, when you put numbers on the plate, it is a very safe business to have. And this is why, and this is a reminder that a lot of my loved ones give me, is if you weren't going to be successful, no bank was going to give you a loan with nothing down. So they really trusted that this is going to be successful. And so they

said, this is worth giving the loan to, or this business is worth it.

Yes, it is very scary. is scary in the sense that, you know, what if we have a slower month and I can't pay bills, you know, like, but this is what that fund is for. And so there are fears like that. Rewards. The rewards are so much more. So if you do a little chart and you have a little scale of risks and rewards, well, the risks.

are very, very ⁓ slim, if even any, but the reward is amazing. So one, I get to design this practice to be something I wanted and I have envisioned. So this is my practice, my mission for my patients, and ⁓ no one tells me what to do, right? And that's really important. When you work as an associate dentist, a lot of people, a lot of employers tell you, hey, I want you to run this.

this

practice or run your little group like it's your own practice. But they say that, no one really means that. You have to follow their rules. You have to follow their ideology, their principles. You can't make it your own.

But now I have that liberty of making everything what I wanted to be the whole experience from start to finish. ⁓ The level of care, the type of care, the type of relationships that I want to build with my patients, how fast, how slow my practice is going to go, what my day looks like. I have full control over everything, which I think that makes me even more passionate about the field. ⁓ In terms of financial rewards, there's a lot more. So as a dentist working for someone, you're cashed.

⁓ You are not paid on a salary. You are paid on a production a percentage of production So it's a commission based but gave my god commission based job ⁓ so you are Working for someone the harder you work. Yeah, you see more money, but you're also Giving away a lot of your money. So you're putting in all this effort. You're working long days You're producing like crazy, but you're giving a lot of it away and you're getting taxed like crazy

So income tax in California is crazy. It's really really high and so the more you make the more you give away But when you have a business the more you make you can find ways to stay lower and stay in a lower tax bracket and take more home It's a little complicated. I don't know if I should even try to get into it ⁓ but basically Let's just say if a business and a on one hand we have a business

And on the other hand, we have an associate dentist. They both make the same amount. But at the end of the year, after expenses and taxes, that business owner takes home more than the employee or the associate dentist does, just considering and given the tax bracket. So there's that financial aspect as well. And then there's just the luxury of I'm my own boss. I determine my own schedule now. And I love that. I really love that.

Mahima Ramachandran (23:46)
Yeah, that's

so important because I know a lot of people down the road would want to work for themselves and be able to create a life that they have envisioned for a long time.

Ruhi Patel (23:47)
you

Yeah, honestly for anybody who has that desire, I strongly recommend it. ⁓ It's very fulfilling. is, you don't dread it. You wake up really excited every single day. It can get tiring, like everything. Nothing is extremely easy, right? ⁓ But it is the best, and this is some advice I got from a family friend who's a dentist. It is the best stress that you will ever take on.

So if anyone's ever interested in starting their own business, that's my number one thing to you. This is going to be the ⁓ best stress that you take on. As long as you're passionate and you really do love it, if you're doing it solely for money, it might not be worth it. But if you have that strong desire to...

Don't know really invest in some something that you're passionate about like you in this podcast It is worth it. It is so worth it

Mahima Ramachandran (24:53)
Totally, So just some real life questions on what you had to make trade-offs on is the next set of questions maybe I'd like to ask. So first, owning a practice probably means you can definitely make more money in the long run, but also you probably have lot more responsibility now that you've started this very early too. Did you have to give up anything financially to take this step, whether it was some...

another big purchase or if you wanted to go somewhere, was there anything that you had to kind of trade off to make this dream happen?

Ruhi Patel (25:29)
A lot. I had to give up a lot. ⁓ It wasn't like, I didn't feel like I missed out on anything, which was nice. So ⁓ to kind of put it into perspective and give my exact example is once I started, once I put in my LOI ⁓ that I wanted to buy this practice, I started talking to, ooh, is that working? Sorry, I don't know what happened.

Mahima Ramachandran (25:59)
Yeah, I can hear you.

Ruhi Patel (26:00)
okay. ⁓ My screen completely went away. I'm so sorry. But... ⁓

Where was I? Okay, so to kind of give you an example of what happened to me was once I put in the LOI and I went to the banks and I was like, hey, this is the practice that I want to purchase. This is all the information that they need. The number one thing I heard from people is no more big purchases. So ⁓ that meant no world tours, no fancy cars, which I didn't really care to have a car. Like I have my own car. I didn't really care to have that ⁓ world tour. had just gone in, just gone on a really

long vacation it was about three weeks earlier this year so I wasn't really sad about that but it was kind of sad to know that I was gonna have some time off and I was just stuck you know here but there is a lot of work that goes into getting a practice so I was fine with it it just allowed me to kind of focus on purchasing this practice

Mahima Ramachandran (26:49)
Thank

Ruhi Patel (26:59)
And then one of the biggest, I wouldn't say it's a setback because both my fiance and I are not

unhappy about this, but we had to kind of stop wedding planning. wedding planning requires a lot of large deposits and that's something banks do not want to see in my account. So they check everything, literally your credit card, your ⁓ checking account, your savings account, your assets, they check everything. So they have access to everything. So ⁓ if we started putting down large deposits for a wedding, ⁓ that's something that would have set off alarms. ⁓

Honestly, he could have probably done it, but it just didn't feel right to do this at the moment. So this is something we're kind of putting off and we're probably gonna pick it right back up now. But yeah, I know that is one of the biggest setbacks. I would say vacations, they weren't, like let's say they were in the States. I did have to say no to some things. It didn't make sense financially. If you think about a trip, it's not just what you spend there. It's going there, getting a hotel,

the food that you're going to eat, the activities that you're going to do, excursions, everything costs money now. And you know, at airports, there's a premium for airports. So we were very financially conscious about what we did. So even if it was like our anniversary, we didn't want to go on this extravagant vacation. We had kind of said, let's go local, let's go to Santa Cruz and check out Beach Boardwalk Walker.

And so there's still frugal ways of doing things. didn't stop living our life, but we did make smarter and wiser financial decisions. And we did hold off on things that were necessary. So I didn't need to go out and buy like a thousand dollar bag or something. That's not something I did. So yeah, I did. I didn't shop. That was the hardest thing for me. But it's okay. There'll come a time where, you know, I can pick that right back up.

Mahima Ramachandran (28:59)
you

Yeah, totally. So my next few questions are kind of more for teens who want to kind of go down the similar path you did. So looking back, was there any kind of financial habit you wanted to have started or that you suggest teens start now if they want to be their own boss running their own practice, doing their own startup, anything?

Ruhi Patel (29:30)
Yes, my God. If there's one thing, well I guess there was a couple, right, that I said with our conversation, ⁓ but one major thing that I really wish I focused on when people told me to was investing. ⁓ So back in high school, Facebook had just like kind of became the new thing. That's when a classmate was always talking about Facebook. You need to put money into Facebook. You need to put money into Facebook.

And I was like, no, what are you doing? You're gambling. No, he wasn't. He is a genius for doing that. Because Facebook now, that has taken him a long way. This is gonna set you up so well in the long run. It is so important to build wealth. In life, debt isn't bad. There's good debt. There's a lot of good debt that you can have. But building wealth is equally important. And what's going to allow you to do that is...

investing. So if you have that summer job that you were saying, if you have extra money, don't just put it in that 3 % high yield savings.

If you can and if you are willing to learn, do a safe ETF. That's the safest way of doing. Over the years, you're at least gonna get an 8 to 10 % gain on that. ⁓ And I will tell you how I told my child self to start investing is I love shopping, I love makeup. ⁓ So I said, ⁓ if I start investing, instead of buying one palette, I can buy 10. And that was my motivating factor. ⁓

putting my money in now. So when I pull that money out, I can buy 10 times more than what I could have in the moment. And that's something I learned. Another thing I learned is when I was younger, I used to stash away a lot of cash, like piggy banks, know, in little secret spots. You're depreciating the value of that money. Money that is not put into something that is growing it is going to lose its value. is not. What a dollar is worth now is not what it's going to be

worth

a year from now. So it is really important that you let that money grow and work for it, work for itself, work for you. You know, so that's what the stock market does. You pump it in and you let it sit. And there might be some rainy days like, you know, it was in 2020, but look at that as your opportunity to pump more in. And you know, you if you get into riskier things, ⁓ which I do know people that have that that's when it becomes stressful. You don't need to do that. You need to put it in and not look at it and forget about it. And one day you go

and you're like, my money grew. That's the ideal situation. So there's a lot of safe ways of doing it. You don't need to go around. know, the stock market can be really tough to figure out. When I started, it was really tough. was like, this is really...

really complicated. I do invest tech heavy. I don't recommend somebody to do that if they don't feel confident about it or if they don't have knowledge about it. a really good safe one is like the S &P 500. And then there's one more that I have. I think it's like VOO or VDO or something like that, the Vanguard. it's a nice safe.

compilation of all these companies that are, in the long run, just gonna go up, right? In the short run, it might fluctuate a little bit, but if you look at it 10 years from now, it's going up. The trend is north. So yeah, that's my biggest advice. Start young. If you have that summer job and you have that extra money, maybe if you invest it now by the time, your goals are to own your own business or to go to grad school, or, sorry,

But yeah, ⁓ like a doctorate program, it can help you out financially quite a bit. And I got really lucky. Not every business is like a dentistry where you don't put money down. And a lot of loans that you take, there is some kind of money that you put down. ⁓ But another thing I could say is you don't need to put your business out there and talk exact numbers if you don't feel comfortable, but talk to people. I don't know why people don't ask others questions.

⁓

No question is dumb. I learned things by asking questions. sat with my friends who were very knowledgeable about these things and I said teach me. Teach me what a 401k is. Teach me what a IRA is. I asked a lot of dumb questions to learn and they're not dumb. They're looking at me now. I'm so happy. Everything that helps you learn is not dumb. ⁓ ask questions. Don't hesitate. A lot of people could be weird about money, but if you are

gonna sit there and openly kind of talk about it and say, hey, I was looking into XYZ as a stock or ⁓ hey, I just want better ways of investing my money, what are you doing? And obviously ask somebody who is a little bit more knowledgeable so they can share their advice with you, but talk about it. I think people just don't talk about it enough.

Mahima Ramachandran (34:37)
Yeah, I think that's really important. think for

a lot of teens and young adults, it's the patience and the uncertainty that probably holds them back from putting money into something like a stock or an ETF because in the short run, like you said, it may fluctuate, but it's really the long run that we want to think of.

Ruhi Patel (34:55)
Yeah, no, 100%.

Mahima Ramachandran (34:57)
So this is actually a question I just thought about on the spot, but I just want to ask you this. When it came to starting your own practice, how did you or why did you decide to go with a practice that was already up and running versus starting from scratch? Or what were the factors that may have gone into where you wanted to go?

Ruhi Patel (35:18)
⁓ I love that question. This was actually very thought out. ⁓ So there's two ways, there's multiple ways you can go about this. There is a practice that you build from ground up. Then there's that practice that is...

slowing down so it's not making too much money but it costs less so I'm gonna put some numbers here so it kind of puts it into perspective let's say starting up a practice you are buying everything brand new that is probably going to be like a five

million dollar investment. It's very expensive. is not cheap. And this is something that I don't know if a bank will easily give you that much money for. Then there's a practice and I obviously looked at a lot of practices before buying one. There's that practice where the dentist has slowed down and the business is very slow but he just or she just wants to get rid of it. So that could be somewhere like 200, 300,000. Obviously the scale of the business matters too.

operatories it's not going to cost too much if you're six operatories like I am it does cost quite a bit. Then there's that practice that's up and running and

You just take over. So let me tell you the perks of all of it I have an extra special gig where the seller stayed back as an employee This doesn't always happen some sellers stay back till I kind of help you the first few months ⁓ a little bit but really they want to give you the key and go retire ⁓ and ⁓ The way I have it and I'm really thankful because this is exactly what I wanted is ⁓ When it came I we closed on a Friday

So that was I was the owner on a Friday come Monday Everything was up and running. I walked into the doors. There were patients coming in All the staff was still there. I made it a point and this is where a lot of dentists mess up They come in erase everyone's contracts and give them to a new really ⁓ crappy Contracts honestly and all the employees run out the door But now you've just ran down your own business in the first month or first day, you know ⁓

So I felt really blessed to just focus on things that came up ⁓

Another thing is that money, that flow, the patience, the staff, everything is smooth. I'm not sitting here worrying about who's going to fill this spot or ⁓ how am I going to attract new patients or how am going to attract any patients. I'm just there and it's up and running and functional. ⁓ That was very important. ⁓ had it not been like this, the one thing that was really important is my patients don't run out the door. And a lot of times when a new dentist buys a practice, patients run out the door because they're like, I don't

I don't know you. I don't trust you, you know? And I didn't want that. So the seller staying on, the patients really don't have a reason to run out the door. That doesn't always happen, but there are some gigs where, you know, they stay back for six months. Or, you know, even if they don't, you're still going to retain at least 50 % of those patients if not 75. So that's one way of going about it. Then there's those people that are like extremely ambitious and are like, you know what, even if this was ran down, I'm going to run it up. It's really hard to do. There's a whole ⁓

book and podcast on it. called How to Buy a Dental Practice by Brian Hanks and I currently work with Brian Hanks ⁓ and his company. So I highly recommend that to anybody who wants to be a dentist. Listen to the podcast, read the book. It's a great tool to help you kind of decide what kind of practice you want to buy. But anyways, there's that practice that was I think I said 300, right? Where it's ran down. ⁓ These patients have left. So it's not an up and running business. Now you are going to go in, you're going to have

to ⁓

so much money into this business but you have nobody walking through that door so it's a lot to build up and there's multiple ways you could go about this so my practice is out of network we don't we're not in network or contracted with insurances so insurance companies are not driving their patients to our business

So ⁓ that's another way a new practice can say, I'm going to get contracted with insurance companies. So now let's say you are looking for a dentist and you're like, hi, you I want to know where I'm in network. Well, let's say someone bought it right down the street from you. So they'll say, hey, you're in network with this dentist. You can go there. So now they're kind of pushing people towards you, but that still takes some time to see. So for me, this was that decision where I was like, I want something where I'm not stressed about things like this. ⁓ Marketing for me will be really

rebranding and attracting more new patients to help the practice grow further versus filling in those old patient slots. ⁓

Mahima Ramachandran (40:38)
Very cool. Yeah, I was very curious. was like, because I know that starting fresh on a practice is also an option, but I was curious like how you made those decisions. So my last question, and this is the one that I ask all my guests at the end. If money could talk to you, what would it say?

Ruhi Patel (40:58)
I

Love this question. I'm a big mindset person. ⁓ I believe that the energy you put out is the energy that you attract. ⁓ So over the years I have learned and I have kind of believe this is money is my money would say you're my friend. I'm here to work for you. I'm here to help you live the life that you have always desired. ⁓ And I think this was really important because there's an ideal life that everyone has. Yeah, I'm passionate about

I

dentistry and I love dentistry but something I want is an abundance of time and what will allow that for me is dentistry or sorry is money and if I have money I can let the bills and you know real real life do its thing and I can go take a trip if I want I can ⁓ I love dancing I love working out I like having a day for self-care I can have that I have the luxury of having that so ⁓ when I started seeing money

as a friend or you know I say many things that I'm

It's best friend and it always comes my way. It does it does I have never worried about I'm gonna pay a bill and it was a mindset there were there was a time where ⁓ I had a lot of bills at once and I was overly generous and I was a little nervous I was like how am I gonna pay but how am I gonna pay the bills and I think I Felt like I was struggling at the time and I was but now there's a time where I'm like no money comes to me easily and even during this practice

where I didn't have to put down money. I did have to pump out a lot of money to like CPAs and ⁓ attorneys and ⁓ consultants. ⁓ There's a lot of money that gets dished out in this. ⁓ So I was like maybe, you know, looking from far away I was like, ⁓ what if I can't make all these things happen for me? But when I was like, no, money is my friend. Money comes to me and flows to me easily. It kept coming. And I think it's really a mindset.

I think if you look at money as your friend and not your enemy, it can do so much for you. So I love that question.

Mahima Ramachandran (43:11)
Thank you. Yeah, I think just the mindset of it is super, super important. I think fearing money is not going to get you more ever. So I think that's it for today's episode of My Two Cents. A big thank you, Ruhi, for joining me today. And I hope this was a very interesting conversation. It was for me. So thank you. Just to recap today, Ruhi and I talked about her journey of starting her own dental practice through a financial lens.

Also thank you to all the listeners if you've made it this far. Thank you for tuning in. I am so excited to grow the podcast with you and I hope you picked up a few smart tips to toss into your finance tip jar. Don't forget to follow along and come back for more money advice next time.