How Much Should Dentists in New York Be Saving Each Year? A Financial Planning Guide

September 11, 2026

Most dentists can tell you their production numbers for the month without hesitating, yet ask the same dentist how much of that production actually needs to end up in savings each year, and the answer is usually a shrug. That gap between knowing your revenue and knowing your target is where a lot of otherwise successful practice owners quietly fall behind.

At LLI Advisory Group, we have spent over 20 years helping New York dental practice owners turn that shrug into an actual number, one that reflects their income, their practice structure, and the life they are building toward.

Why “How Much Should I Save” Does Not Have One Answer

Generic financial advice tends to land on a single savings percentage and stop there. For a dentist, that approach falls apart quickly. Your income is tied directly to practice performance rather than a fixed salary, your tax exposure looks different depending on whether you are structured as an S corporation, a PC, or a PLLC, and a meaningful share of what you earn may already be reinvested into equipment, staff, or a buildout rather than sitting in a personal account. A savings target that ignores those realities is not really a target at all.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, most people will need somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of their pre-retirement income to maintain their standard of living once they stop working, and the average retirement now spans roughly 20 years. For a New York dentist earning well above the national average, that percentage translates into a much larger dollar figure than it would for a typical wage earner, which is exactly why generic savings guidance underestimates what high earners in this profession actually need to set aside.

The Difference Between Practice Income and Personal Savings

One of the more common blind spots we see is a practice owner who treats a strong year of collections as evidence that personal savings are on track. The two are related, but they are not the same thing. Distributions taken from the practice, compensation structure, and how aggressively profits are reinvested back into operations all affect what actually reaches your personal balance sheet. A practice that looks financially healthy on paper can still leave its owner under-saving personally if the numbers were never translated into an actual annual target.

What a Realistic Savings Target Looks Like

Rather than applying a flat percentage across every client, we build a savings target around a few specific factors: current income level, existing debt obligations including any remaining student loans, the timeline to retirement, and whether the practice itself is expected to fund part of that retirement through an eventual sale. A dentist in year three of ownership with a young practice and significant debt has a different realistic savings rate than a dentist fifteen years in with a stable, established patient base.

What Should Factor Into Your Annual Savings Number

Building an accurate savings target means looking well beyond a single retirement account contribution limit. A few of the most important inputs include:

• Current income and entity structure: How your practice is organized affects your effective tax rate, which in turn affects how much of what you earn is actually available to save.
• Retirement account selection: A SEP-IRA, solo 401(k), or defined benefit plan each carry different contribution ceilings, and the right choice shapes how much you are able to shelter each year.
• Outstanding debt obligations: Practice acquisition loans, buildout financing, and any remaining student debt all compete with retirement savings for the same dollars.
• Timeline to a practice sale or transition: If a portion of retirement is expected to come from selling the practice, that expectation needs to be tested against realistic valuation numbers rather than assumed.

Once these inputs are established, the target becomes something concrete you can track year over year, rather than a vague sense that you should probably be saving more.

How LLI Advisory Group Builds Savings Targets for New York Dentists

Gerard Iacovano, CPA, has spoken about how understanding a client’s full financial picture, not just the practice numbers, is what allows LLI to give guidance clients can actually act on. A savings target built in isolation from your personal life rarely holds up, since a dentist planning a home purchase in the next two years needs a different near-term savings approach than one who is debt-free and simply building toward retirement. We take that full picture into account before recommending a number.

Because we work with hundreds of dental practices, we also have a clear sense of what realistic savings rates look like at different income levels and career stages across the profession, which means the target we build for you is grounded in actual outcomes we have seen play out, not a generic industry rule of thumb. Our tax and accounting services keep your entity structure and tax exposure aligned with that target throughout the year, and our practice advisory services help make sure your practice’s performance is actually generating the income needed to hit it.

For dentists whose retirement plan includes an eventual sale, our practice valuation and transition team can pressure-test whether that assumption is realistic well before it becomes a near-term decision. And for newer practice owners still establishing their financial footing, our start-up navigation team builds savings planning into the foundation from day one rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Build a Real Savings Target With LLI Advisory Group

A vague sense that you should probably be saving more is not a plan, and it rarely closes the gap between where you are and where you want to end up. New York dentists deserve an actual number, built around their income, their practice, and their personal goals, not a percentage borrowed from generic financial advice that was never built with a dental practice in mind.

LLI Advisory Group has spent over 20 years turning that kind of clarity into a working strategy for practice owners across New York. Contact LLI Advisory Group to build a savings target that actually reflects your practice and your future.