Dentist Makes $13k (at least)

Bernard Siew works for a cosmetic dentistry chain and collects a pay check of at least $13,000.

An Australian working in Singapore, he revealed in the Sunday Times Me & My Money column that he tries to save "as much as half my income".

The other half is for expenses that include rental, food and transport. He is paying $5,500 rent for his apartment in Holland Village.

Let's assume conservatively that he spends only $1,000 on food and transport.

This works out to $6,500 for his expenses.

And this means his income is $13,000 a month.

In a separate news, the New Paper reports that a construction crane operator can fetch up to $10,000 a month including overtime pay.

So, do you want to be a dentist or a crane specialist?

http://www.salary.sg/2008/dentist-makes-13k-at-least/

dentists make too much with too little effort

haha! Depends how you look at it.. Would you want to risk a dentist earning $2k/month working on your cosmetic dentistry services?

But wow. $10,000 a month for a construction crane operator.

I definitely need to work a lot harder..

13k only? i just went for my dental operation . in just 30 minutes i lost2 teeth and RM600 !!!!!!! I think i will consider of being a dentist now.

I read that article too. Looks like different people have different definition of frugal living. Initially I thought "saving as much as half his income" made him pretty frugal until he mentioned he spent $5.5k on rent.

I see all those articles encouraging Americans to save "at least 10% of your income", and to start with 100 bucks per month and gradually increase it to 10%. So I guess for this (I'm guessing Western educated) guy, saving 50% of his income is already super duper hyper frugal.

I think he must have earned a lot more than 13k though. Somebody who spends 5.5k/month just for RENT will certainly spend more than 1k for food and other stuff. Don't forget booze, entertainment, etc. etc. etc.

I am a student who is pondering over several options. I don't know what career i want to pursue. Should i be a dentist, an optometrist, or other biomedical related careers? I have decided to take diploma, but i don't know which to venture into. May i know which is more well earning? Thanks.

Well what are your criteria for "what career I want to pursue"? Are they purely based on how much money the career can potentially earn you?
Note that you should find out also (1) how much you'll like it, and (2) how good you'll be in it.
If you don't like it, then you'll just be miserable day after day. If you're not good in it, then in the first place you won't get to the top and you won't make so much money in the first place.

Hi, thanks for your reply. Currently, it's much more on how well-earning the jobs are. I will prefer jobs within the chemical and life sciences area.

Actually, i don't know how much i will like them or how well i am going to be because i never experience them before.

Try to read up journals about your field. Does it excite you or put you to sleep? Do you honestly feel that you _want_ to read because you're interested?
I've met a lot "vocational programmers" in IT--those who are in IT only to make a living and just learn the minimum necessary to get by. These are guys who, after 10 years of doing this, will start complaining constantly why they keep being overtaken and passed by younger programmers who have only half their experience.
They are the ones who, despite being close to 40, are only making as much or less than 25-yr old programmers because they don't have the drive/inclination/ability.
They are the ones who go everyday for kopi session for one hour to bitch together about how hard life is treating them and how unfair the world is, unfair, unfair, when they hear about 25-yr old making close to 100k p.a. as an IT dude.
They are the ones who think that just because they have done mediocre jobs for 10 years suddenly the world owe it to them to raise them above 20something programmers who can do it a lot better than they do.
Rant aside... what I'm saying is, if reading about dentistry or the latest developments in dentistry puts you to sleep, most probably you won't be a very good dentist. Gotta love this stuff to make it big. Don't be like those vocational programmers. Try to find out as much as you can first.