Short answer: hitting a savings number isn’t the same as being ready to retire. True readiness is both financial and personal — a plan for your income, your taxes, your healthcare, and just as importantly, your time and purpose. Here are five warning signs that, target balance or not, you may want to wait or plan more before you walk away.
Sign 1: you don’t have an income plan
Having a big balance isn’t a plan for turning it into a reliable paycheck. If you can’t say how much you’ll spend, where it will come from, and how it holds up in a downturn, you’re not ready yet — you have savings, not a retirement paycheck. That plan is the difference between “I think I have enough” and knowing it.
Sign 2: you haven’t solved healthcare
If you’re retiring before Medicare age, health coverage is a major, often-underestimated cost — and a gap in the plan. Not knowing how you’ll bridge to Medicare, or budgeting nothing for healthcare and long-term care, is a common reason a retirement that looks affordable isn’t.
Sign 3: you’re still carrying heavy debt
Entering retirement with large debt payments raises your required income and your risk. It’s not always a dealbreaker, but significant high-interest debt — or a mortgage that strains a fixed income — is a sign to shore up the balance sheet before you give up your paycheck.
Sign 4: your withdrawal rate is too aggressive
Sign 5: you have no plan for your time
This one is financial-adjacent but crucial. Many dentists tie identity and purpose to their work, and retiring into a void — no structure, no purpose, no plan for the hours — leads some to be miserable (or to spend impulsively out of boredom). Readiness includes knowing what you’re retiring *to*, not just what you’re leaving. It’s the human half of practicing by choice.
Frequently asked questions
Readiness is both financial and personal. Financially, you need a reliable income plan, a healthcare plan, manageable debt, and a sustainable withdrawal rate — not just a target balance. Personally, you need a plan for your time and purpose. Warning signs in any of these areas suggest waiting or planning more before you retire.
Not by itself. A target balance doesn’t guarantee a sustainable income plan, solved healthcare, manageable debt, or a fulfilling use of your time. Many people hit a number but aren’t truly ready across these dimensions. Retirement readiness is about the whole picture, not one figure.
Sources
Founder & Financial Planner · Investment Adviser Representative · Series 63 & 65
Ian McGinnis is the founder of Dental Wealth Partners and a fee-only financial planner dedicated to dentists. As an investment adviser representative (Series 63 and 65), he built the firm to give dentists coordinated, fiduciary advice across their practice, taxes, investments, retirement plans, and long-term goals — the whole picture in one strategy. A graduate of Belhaven University, Ian previously worked at Davis Private Wealth, MML Investors Services, and Northwestern Mutual, and is based in the Jackson, Mississippi area. He is the author of The Wealthy Dentist and hosts the Smiles & Cents podcast.
Keep reading
- Building your retirement paycheck: turning savings into incomeRetirement flips the problem from saving to spending. How dentists can turn a portfolio and practice-sale proceeds into a reliable, tax-smart paycheck.
- When should you stop saving and start spending?Lifelong savers often struggle to spend in retirement. How to know when you have “enough,” and give yourself permission to enjoy what you built.
- At what age can a dentist actually retire?The age a dentist can retire depends on their number, not the calendar. How to estimate your target and why many dentists could retire earlier than they think.