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Dentists, Puns, and Money is a podcast focused on two things: The financial topics relevant to dentists leaving clinical practice and the stories and lessons of dentists who have already done so.
1. The stories of dentists who have transitioned from full-time clinical dentistry.
2. The financial topics that are relevant for dentists making that transition.
If you’re a dentist thinking about your exit from clinical, and you’d like to learn from the experiences of other dentists who have made that transition, be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app.
Host Shawn Terrell also dives deep into the many financial components of exiting dentistry, including tax reduction strategies and how to live off your assets.
And, we try to keep it light by mixing in a bad joke… or two.
Please note: Dentists, Puns, and Money was previously known as The Practice Growth Podcast until March 2022.
Shawn Terrell (00:07.843)
There is a movie from the year 2000 called Almost Famous. And if I had to pick a favorite movie of all time, it would probably be Almost Famous. And if you haven't seen the movie, a little background is that it's about a band, primarily a band called Stillwater. And Stillwater isn't based on any one band, but it's rather based on several bands that were sort of coming of age in the early 1970s.
According to the writer and director Cameron Crowe, it's about in part Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, the Eagles, just to name a few. And this rather than this movie is about rather than make the movie about any one band, he rather took Cameron Crowe took different parts and pieces from several bands, several anecdotes and made them into this semi biographical band called Stillwater. So
When I think about Stillwater, I think about an amalgam, which is sort of a combination or a composite of different things. And I think that's a good analogy for a podcast featuring dentists because an amalgam is a term very familiar to dentists and the dental industry. So more on how an amalgam ties into the podcast moving forward in just a little bit. before I get too deep, as a reminder, I am your host, Shawn Terrell.
This is Dentist Puns and Money. Dentist Puns and Money is a podcast brought to you by Dentist Exit Planning, which is a financial planning firm that helps dentists who are leaving clinical practice in the next few years, figure out how to build a financial treatment plan for their life after dentistry. So long time listeners will notice that I took a little break from the podcast in the last several months. Just some brief background there. I had kind of gotten a little bit burned out.
and a little bit bored about how the podcast was moving forward and thought I would just take some time off and reimagine how I want the podcast to look moving forward. So for the foreseeable future, there's a couple, two big changes that I'll mention about the podcast. Number one, I think the podcast had grown into sort of a bunch of random topics without any design about when they were going to come out.
Shawn Terrell (02:32.277)
And while they were all interesting topics, I just think there's a better way to do it. And so as I re-imagine it, what I think about is for retirement planning for anyone, let alone a dentist, there's really only like three or four big things that you have to figure out, but there's many layers or different elements of these big three or four things trying to figure them out. So my idea moving forward is to focus on one topic related to retirement planning, getting out of clinical.
and go really deep over the course of several episodes on that one topic. So I think an inch wide, but a mile deep. At least that's the analogy that I think about as I think about the podcast moving forward. we're going to start by talking about the one big, beautiful bill act that was passed in the summer of 2025. I'll get into that in a little bit, but I just really wanted to explain how
moving forward, it's going to be kind of like the same overall big topic for several episodes until I feel like we've covered all the main points of that big topic. And then number two, I just think that maybe a lot of my podcasts in the past have been a little too heavy on financial jargon and specifics, which is why, which while important can be a little bit boring. So I am going to
make the podcast moving forward about a dentist or the stories surrounding a dentist that I know named Dr. Bill. And the catch with Dr. Bill is that he is not a real dentist. He's actually the combination of several dentists and non-dentists that I know that are at or in retirement and sort of some of the things that Dr. Bill learned about or was struggling with and making that
And telling stories about Dr. Bill as a way to help you, the listener and the viewer better understand how to exit clinical practice and retire to financially speaking, whatever is most important for the rest of your time here on earth. So circling back to what I was talking about with Almost Famous in the beginning, Dr. Bill is an amalgam. He's like the band Stillwater. He's not any one person, but he's rather the characteristics and the elements of several different people.
Shawn Terrell (04:55.316)
And using this sort of semi about biographical fictional character, I think will be a more interesting way to talk about getting out of clinical practice and retiring from dentistry. So I'll talk about Dr. Bill a lot and tell stories about Dr. Bill moving forward in the podcast, but I probably am not going to always reference the fact that he's a semi fictional character. So this is fair warning that Dr. Bill is sort of
Not a real person. I don't want to do anything misleading, but I also think it's kind of boring to mention the background of that every podcast moving forward. So this is your fair warning. As I mentioned at the beginning or a little bit ago, while we're all here, think it's important to, or while we're all here, might as well dive into some of the things related to the one big beautiful bill act that was passed in July of 2025.
for today's episode since I've already spent half of it talking about what the podcast is going to look like moving forward. I thought it was sort of just hit on three big observations about the big, beautiful bill, and then we can dive into different parts of it in the next several episodes moving forward. think the next three episodes after this one are going to be about the big, beautiful bill and sort of parts and pieces of that that I think are most relevant to dentists getting out of clinical practice and
retiring. So number one, the big beautiful bill just unfortunately, in my opinion, does not simplify much in the way of taxes. If you've listened for a number of years, I think the tax code is already too complicated and or was too complicated before. And this new bill does not make it any less complicated. Doesn't mean it's necessarily good or bad for an individual person, but just
think, objectively speaking, it's not any simpler than it was before. the, my big problem with,
Shawn Terrell (07:05.611)
tax code and how it's complicated is that there's just so much if but then logic related to it. And I would say the one caveat about that, the one thing that is relatively simple and straightforward is that the standard deduction remains relatively high from where it was prior to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017. And as a result, a large percentage of people
are still moving forward probably going to be better off just taking the standard deduction and not having to worry about itemizing their taxes. So that is maybe one way that the tax code will remain as simple as it was prior to this bill. But there's a lot of other parts and pieces that just make it more complicated. The second big takeaway, and I've talked about this before when I talk about taxes, but it's just a reminder that
Do not let taxes drive the bus. And what I mean by that is don't let a tax deduction or saving money on taxes be the primary reason why you make some financial decision. An easy example with the big beautiful bill is it has an element that if you buy an American manufactured car, that some of the
interest on the loan for that car is now deductible. But what I'm getting at is maybe that's not the best reason to buy a new car if you don't need to buy a new car. And and kind of to add on to that, it's deductible, I think off the top of my head up to $10,000 a year on your taxes. But think about in the current interest rate environment, how much a car would have to cost.
to actually spend $10,000 a year on interest on the car loan, to get to $10,000. That would be a pretty expensive car, a car that most people probably couldn't afford or wouldn't buy. And the catch is that deduction phases out at a certain income level. So this is an example of the only people that could buy that car and spend that much in loan interest to get the deduction are people that have
Shawn Terrell (09:25.32)
that make or on their taxes show more than $200,000 a year, well.
or I should say a better way to say that the only people that would buy a car that would generate 200, maybe a better way to say that is the only people that would buy a car and borrow the money to generate $10,000 a year in loan interest would make a lot of money. But that loan interest
deduction phases out or starts to not apply to people that make more than $200,000 a year on their taxes. So sort of get into the situation where there's not many people in my opinion that that is going to apply to that make a low amount of money and have buy an American made car that results in up to $10,000 a year in interest. So that sort of bleeds into the third observation I would make about the one big beautiful bill.
And that's just to be careful about making guesses and assumptions about how it's going to affect your individual tax situation with the new legislation. That was a lot of word salad. But I think people see an element of this new bill that applies to their situation and they automatically think or assume that their taxes are going to be lower as a result. But what they might not.
initially realize is that while they might be lower on that one area, there might be other elements of the new bill that now apply to their situation that will make their taxes overall higher. third observation, just make sure that you're not making any guesses or assumptions and you're having someone actually analyze your taxes and how they relate to your situation specifically on this new bill to make sure that you're actually better off.
Shawn Terrell (11:25.885)
with some of these things. So I think that's enough for today, sort of revisiting where the podcast has been and where it's going to be moving forward and hitting on three high level things about the One Big Beautiful Bill. As I said, we'll dive into more elements of it in future podcasts in the coming weeks and months. If you would like to learn more about how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act applies to you and to your situation, we have a free checklist that we can send you.
So whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on a podcast app, what you want to do to get that free checklist is go into the show notes for this episode and look under EPISODE RESOURCE in the show notes. And if you click there, we will email you a checklist for the one big beautiful bill. And as you go through this checklist, I think that's just a really good way to sort of like.
in your minds, I think about your situation and think about if like one of these things about the new OB-BBA applies to you. So happy to send that your way if you go to the show notes and click on the link. And then also, if you are a dentist that's leaving clinical practice within the next few years and you would like an individual consultation with me with dentist exit planning, you can schedule a no obligation virtual meeting with me.
And to do that, you just go to our website, which is DentistExit.com and click on free consultation at the top right corner of the screen. a reminder before I go that Dentist Exit Planning is a registered investment advisor. The information presented here should not be interpreted as investment, legal, tax, financial planning, or wealth management advice. It's for educational purposes only and past performance is not indicative of future results.
For now, thanks for watching, thanks for listening. To quote one of my favorite lines from Almost Famous, it's all happening. I am Shawn Terrell and we will talk to you again very soon.