More Teachers become millionaires than doctors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers benefit from starting their careers young compared to other professionals. When you start teaching at 23 or 24, you can make your retirement contributions because at that age you can live quite cheaply. And since teaching is not a profession that encourages an expensive lifestyle (in fact the hours and culture discourage things like going out a lot, being very showy with expensive clothes or other personal items, etc.), it's not that hard to tuck away a significant percent of your income.

Teaching is also a job that rewards seniority and has fairly straightforward stepped increases. Yes, we're talking about moving from 75k to 90k over the course of a decade, so not eye-popping amounts. But that's a meaningful increase that can happen simply by putting in the hours. Teachers who get advanced degrees often see substantial increases even over that -- I know teachers with masters degrees who were making 120k by 30. There's a ceiling on that and they aren't going to go much higher. But do the math here: say you start out at 70k at age 24, and then get an additional via a part-time and summer program that allows you to add the degree without losing any years of income. Say be 30 or 32 your are over 100k, and by 37 you hit your peak earning of 140k. If you work at that amount until age 54 (30 years), you can retire with a substantial pension plus additional retirement savings. Then you can do education consulting or tutoring for another 8 years while also collecting your pension, essentially keeping your income steady while working considerably less in a lower stress role.

By 62 you'll have your pension, considerable savings, likely a paid off home, plus you can now collect Social Security.

I know many two teacher families who are currently living really nice retirements with world travel, kitchen upgrades, plenty of money to spend on grandkids, and expensive hobbies. And they were semi-retired by 55 and fully retired by 65.

I also know a number of Big Law partners who have way more money but are still working stressful, long days into their 60s and feel that they will "never have enough."

The teachers were smarter, no question.

+1. Slow and steady wins the race (usually). Not a fable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another educator who is a millionaire- before I reached 40, and now have 2 million. I started making 56k in my mid twenties and now make over 140k in my mid 40s. I work 12 months which is why my salary is on the higher end. I am married to someone who makes slightly less. Thr double income, no student loans due to scholarships, living below our means, and investing young, all helped

Any kids?

[Anonymous]

Doctors incur expensive educational debt. They have delayed starts to careers due to the length of time spent training. They then earn very high incomes over a shorter period of their lives, which results in higher taxes than if that same total income was spent over long periods of time. The delayed start plus debt means they are slow to start investing so they don't benefit as much from compounding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another educator who is a millionaire- before I reached 40, and now have 2 million. I started making 56k in my mid twenties and now make over 140k in my mid 40s. I work 12 months which is why my salary is on the higher end. I am married to someone who makes slightly less. Thr double income, no student loans due to scholarships, living below our means, and investing young, all helped

Any kids?

yes, 2

[Anonymous]

Docs have lots of student debt and they don't start earning big bucks late into life and that's if they don't go into gen peds, family practice etc.

Docs also spend more on lifestyle, divorce, insurance and taxes.

That being said, even after all that, they can't be behind teachers. Its not adding up.

[Anonymous]

A million dollars is definitely not what it used to be.

It only buys two Hunter Biden paintings.

[Anonymous]

Weird thread.

There are far more teachers than doctors.

A million in equity and pensions is very doable if teachers are sensible throughout their lives. But a million in equity and pension is still a simple and quiet retirement. A million today isn't a million in 1990.

Your typical doctor is going to have far more wealth in retirement than your typical teacher.

I know teachers. I know doctors. This is just distorting the facts and abusing the concept of a million to make for a catchy headline. The vast majority of teachers are not headed for generous retirement if they are single or married to other teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Docs have lots of student debt and they don't start earning big bucks late into life and that's if they don't go into gen peds, family practice etc.

Docs also spend more on lifestyle, divorce, insurance and taxes.

That being said, even after all that, they can't be behind teachers. Its not adding up.

It's not that they are behind teachers--it's just fewer of them are millionaires than teachers. That's likely because 1) there are more teachers, 2) some doctors never really financially recover from the medical education debt because they are not great with money and choose a relatively low-paying specialty and 3) a million really isn't that much in retirement. If the bar was 5 or 10 million there would likely be more doctors than teachers at that level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Docs have lots of student debt and they don't start earning big bucks late into life and that's if they don't go into gen peds, family practice etc.

Docs also spend more on lifestyle, divorce, insurance and taxes.

That being said, even after all that, they can't be behind teachers. Its not adding up.

It's not that they are behind teachers--it's just fewer of them are millionaires than teachers. That's likely because 1) there are more teachers, 2) some doctors never really financially recover from the medical education debt because they are not great with money and choose a relatively low-paying specialty and 3) a million really isn't that much in retirement. If the bar was 5 or 10 million there would likely be more doctors than teachers at that level.

Not likely. Definitely. This is a silly comparison because it entirely rests upon that there are far more retired teachers than retired doctors. So there are more "millionaire" retired teachers than retired doctors. But it is also grossly misleading. Your average retired teacher does not have millions and millions in retirement accounts. But your average retired doctor will.

My mother is a retired teacher who is also a "millionaire" but that's because she's married to my father, who is a retired doctor. You can google and find the average retired teacher's pension in every state and it is far from a millionaire's lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A million dollars is definitely not what it used to be.

It only buys two Hunter Biden paintings.

Lol!

[Anonymous]

Some of the doctors in my family are definitely into the keeping up with Jones' mentality of private school, nice cars, home renos, fancy trips, etc. Of course one of the teachers in our family is into the same lifestyle and her husband is a teacher so they live above their means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of the doctors in my family are definitely into the keeping up with Jones' mentality of private school, nice cars, home renos, fancy trips, etc. Of course one of the teachers in our family is into the same lifestyle and her husband is a teacher so they live above their means.

Doctors typically can afford it. They are the Joneses. You should take a hard look at doctors incomes to see why. Especially if they are, like so many doctors these days, also married to other doctors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird thread.

There are far more teachers than doctors.

A million in equity and pensions is very doable if teachers are sensible throughout their lives. But a million in equity and pension is still a simple and quiet retirement. A million today isn't a million in 1990.

Your typical doctor is going to have far more wealth in retirement than your typical teacher.

I know teachers. I know doctors. This is just distorting the facts and abusing the concept of a million to make for a catchy headline. The vast majority of teachers are not headed for generous retirement if they are single or married to other teachers.

Yes. This!

The actual headline is:“millionaires more likely to be teachers than doctors”

But they want you to read it as:
“Teachers more likely to be millionaires than doctors.”

There are probably 5 times as many teachers as there are doctors. (Probably more if you are only counting people willing to fill out a survey from Dave Ramsey). So, let’s say that 90% of doctors have $1 million saved, and half of those have at least $5 million saved. And 20% of the teachers have $1 million saved, and <1% have $5 million.
The way that it’s worded, teachers still come out ahead.

Dave Ramsey has some solid advice, but stuff like this is a load of crap.

[Anonymous]

My parents are both teachers, and are definitely not millionaires. But, in retirement, they have pensions that, using a 4% withdrawal, are the equivalent of around $3m in assets.

[Anonymous]

Most teachers I know can't save a dime for many years when they first start teaching. They are in the hole with student loans.