Retire Ready Rx

I spent 37 years telling patients to wear their retainers forever. Then I made the same mistake I warned everyone about. Here's the story, plus what I still tell friends and family about whitening, night guards, and sleep apnea.

https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/07/30/wear-your-retainer-forever/

Every retirement calculator wants a number from you. I never had one.

What I had instead was a rental building, a couple of retirement accounts, and faith it would be enough. Looking back, the number was never really the problem. Knowing exactly where the income would come from every month, that was the part I wish I'd nailed down sooner.

New post: https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/07/17/retirement-number/

St. George was my escape valve for several years. Wednesday night drives after a long week in the practice, piano with the primary kids, back home Sunday after church. Last week I drove into town and it hit me: it's not my refuge anymore. It's just where my daughter lives. And that's not a loss. That's proof the transition worked. New post on the blog.

https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/07/02/just-a-visitor-now/

Thirty-seven years in a Utah dental practice wired me for speed. Moving to Florida didn't fix that — not right away. Here's what I learned about actually slowing down in retirement. https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/06/26/the-pace-of-life-in-florida/

I made a promise before I signed the papers — I'd stay until they found two dentists to replace me. My patients weren't going to be left in the lurch. Here's what those months of waiting actually looked like. https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/06/19/the-promise-i-made-before-i-left/

The morning after I recovered from a travel cold in Florida, I woke up and realized nobody needed me.
No patients. No team. No one depending on me to show up and be Dr. Garner.
Part of me felt relief. Part of me felt something I wasn't ready for.
This post is about what I figured out — and what I'd tell any dentist who's six months from retirement and quietly terrified about losing the title.
Read it here: https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/06/18/the-morning-nobody-needed-me/

When a diagnosis came with no insurance-approved timeline, we learned something about faith we hadn't fully understood before: you don't always get the how before you need the why.

New post about standing in that gap, and what carried us through it: https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/06/16/the-wait-we-couldnt-afford/

Moving to Florida came with the usual changes, new house, new climate. What surprised me was how differently people here treat strangers, from kids on the beach saying "yes sir" to being called "Mr. Ray" at the grocery store. It made me think about how I treat people too.

Read the full story here: https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/06/15/yall-yes-sir-and-a-whole-lot-of-miss-loriann/

Most of us say "I'm grateful" without really feeling it. There's a big difference between the words and the actual feeling — and I didn't learn that difference until life took some things away from me first.

New post on the blog today. I think this one will hit home for a lot of you.

https://retirereadyrx.com/2026/06/12/what-gratitude-actually-feels-like-and-why-most-of-us-miss-it/