Welome to Richer Retirement!
MPower Co in partnership with Kansas City’s Fountain of Health Wellness Program offers you Richer Retirement. This is an eight chapter, online course that will guide you through the retirement planning process from start to finish. If you know that retirement preparation is important and want to increase your confidence that you are building towards a Richer Retirement, this course is for you!
People in their 20’s through 70’s have all found the course to be positive and life-changing. The earlier in your working life you start building towards a richer retirement, the more time is on your side. On the other hand, it is never too late to plan for a richer retirement.
This course is not an online textbook; it’s an interactive learning experience that combines education, guidance, and support. This course is not a sales pitch; it’s 100% education you can trust, drawn from well-respected research and best practices. MPower’s Director of Education Dr. Thia Crawford combines her financial expertise with her passion for positive psychology to create a straightforward, holistic financial planning course.
For more information on the course content, your author and instructor, and the terms of the course, keep scrolling.
Ready to register? Click the button below. Use code “kcwellness” at checkout to have your course fees paid for by the Kansas City Fountain of Health Wellness program.
What You’ll Learn
1
Retirement Errors Even Smart People Make
This chapter is designed to ensure you are set up for success in the course. You will learn more about your instructor, the course agenda, and, perhaps most importantly, learn about the errors even smart people make when planning for retirement.
2
Assessing Current Finances
This chapter will walk you through assessing your current financial situation. It will help you review your credit report, detail your current financial assets and debts, and work to organize your financial information.
3
Social Security
One critical source of retirement income is Social Security, which makes your knowledge of how it works vital. Be among the few that know correct information about the sustainability of Social Security. This chapter will clarify claiming strategies and maximize monthly benefits. You may be surprised why you need to set up your online Social Security account now.
4
Employer Retirement Benefits and Retirement Goals
Employer retirement benefits are changing rapidly, and not in the favor of the employee. This chapter will help you discover if you have employer provided retirement benefits and what they are today. It will also equip you to monitor for changes. The second half of the chapter will focus on retirement timing and goal setting.
5
Savings and Investing
Many individuals know they need to be setting aside significant money for retirement, but need help knowing how to reach this goal. This chapter will help you build your confidence related to saving and investing. Practical catch-up strategies for late saves are included in this chapter. Best of all, the principals are presented in plain English and not in industry jargon.
6
Estate Planning
You have spent your adult life accumulating what you have. It is your responsibility to decide who gets it when you are through with it. This chapter will take the mystery out of estate planning. It will teach you that estate planing doesn’t have to be as complicated or expensive as you think. Having an effective estate plan in place can be your last loving gift to those you love.
7
Taxes and Insurance
Taxes don’t go away when you retire. The need for insurance (especially health) doesn’t go away when you retire. The need to understand and manage taxes and insurance is as great as ever in retirement. This chapter will increase your confidence regarding tax and insurance management strategies in retirement and the years leading to retirement.
8
Richer Retirement Strategies
Having a richer retirement is expecting the unexpected. The chapter starts with education relating to possible issues of aging, such as being suddenly wealthy, suddenly single, aging in place longer, and much more. It concludes with a power-packed list recapping strategies for a richer retirement. You won’t find this list anywhere else!
How It Works
Fully Online
This is an online course that can be accessed with any device (we would recommend using a computer) that has internet access.
8 Chapters
There are eight individual chapters, which are detailed in the above section. The chapters are individually released allowing students to immerse themselves in one topic allowing for as much growth and knowledge to be transferred as possible. Each chapter has a significant number of lessons, breaking up the information into easy to digest amounts of knowledge.
90 Days of Access
The course starts the day you enroll in the course. Students have access to the course information 24/7 for 90 days from the course enrollment date. Therefore, students can access the information when it works best. There are eight chapters, so by having the course accessible for additional time this allows time for students to re-read units and/or catch-up if life happens.
Weekly Emails
Each week of the course your instructor will send an email to introduce the week’s topic ensuring you are notified of chapter releases. This email will provide encouragement and there maybe even be a joke or two, so make sure not to miss them.
Individualized Communications with Your Coach
As part of each chapter, there are prompted questions/discussion points for a communication with the course instructor. You choose which items you want to discuss with your instructor, as you have the sole discretion to determine how much you want to share. Each student receives a personalized, timely response to these communications. Our goal is to ensure each student reaches their goals for taking the course.
Progress Tracker
Once the course begins, you have 24/7 access for 90 days from your registration date. MPower Co uses Thinkific to deliver the course content, which tracks each students progress. This allows you to know where you left off so you can pick up right where you left off.
Downloadable Worksheets
Throughout the course there are a number of downloadable worksheets (digital assets inventory, an expense tracker, to name a couple). You are able to download the blank form, edit them, and retain them in your records.
No-Stress Self Assessments
Throughout the course there are quizzes to test your knowledge. These are only for fun, as no grade is given. They’re simply a chance for you to test your knowledge. Quizzes and the results to them are confidential.
Meet Your
Richer Retirement Author and Instructor
Dr. Cynthia “Thia” Crawford
Before joining MPower Co as Director of Education, Thia served as an extension professor at the university level for over 30 years. Her expertise has reached over 300 million people through radio and face-to-face workshops and classes on subjects including financial education, leadership, management, and donor education. A highlight of her career has been traveling the world as a W.K. Kellogg International Leadership Fellow (class 1).
Although Dr. Crawford already holds advanced degrees in consumer economics and adult education, Thia continues to model life-long education, recently finishing graduate work focused on positive psychology and how it can make retirement planning more comprehensive and impactful. Thia is a university extension professor emerita, a scholar, an entrepreneur and business owner, radio personality, researcher and problem solver, college sports fan, international traveler, cattle rancher, and tree farmer. She is always excited about the opportunity to work with individuals.
Presented Over
3,500
face-to-face workshops for over 200,000 individuals.
Fun Facts:
• She and her husband Robert paid off their first home in seven years
• She’s given finance tips on the radio in 20 states
• She is an avid quilter
• She holds graduate degrees a in Family Economics and Adult Education
Course Terms
The negotiated course fee for Richer Retirement is $99; however, the City of Kansas City Fountain of Health Wellness Program will pay this fee for you as long as you complete the course. Simply use code “kcwellness” at checkout.
Completion of the course has been determined to consist of completing at least 6 of the 8 chapters. Completion of each chapter is a substantive email exchange (one or two paragraphs) with the instructor about information you found most meaningful in the chapter and how you have or will apply the information in the course. An email to the instructor saying “I read it” is not a substantive response.
You will have access to Richer Retirement for 90 days from your enrollment date in the course. The course chapters will be released to you each week until all chapters are released. We know “life happens” during the course. While a good goal, it is not required to complete a chapter each week. You may work at your own pace to complete the course within the 90 day course window. You have extra time after all chapters are released to continue working or to review any of the course material.
If you do not complete at least 6 of the 8 chapters in the 90-day window, the $99 course fee will be deducted from two of your future paychecks. The good news is nearly all people enrolling that get started in the course, find this information so valuable they complete the course.
All information you choose to share through communications with your instructor will be treated with strict confidentiality. Because of the partnership between MPower and the Fountain of Wellness Program, the wellness program will be provided a list of employees enrolling on the course start date so program eligibility can be confirmed. At the conclusion of the course, the wellness program will be provided a list of those enrolled indicating who completed the course and who did not.
