Well well well. The Air Force has finally debuted the long-awaited (by me and not many others) financial readiness training. And who do you think was one of the first to sign up? You guessed it. Yours truly. I’ve been waiting for 15 November to arrive so I could see just how good this financial readiness training was. Was it going to be broadly applicable? Too basic, or too advanced? Something more useful than “open TSP and USAA accounts, and make sure you don’t take out a car loan at 32% interest”? Well, I intended to find out.
Last Friday I signed up for the new financial readiness training via MyVector. And today I’m going to show you exactly what I saw. Spoiler alert: not much. I’ll explain exactly why as we go along.
This post is a long one but it’s mostly pictures. I wanted you all to see what it looks like, not just my opinion of it.
But before I do that, a very quick history lesson.
Why Does The Air Force Have New Financial Readiness Training?
Are you a giant nerd, like me? Then you might want to read the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act.
If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, here’s the deal. Sections 631-635 of the NDAA established the Blended Retirement System. When the NDAA was signed into law, BRS became the lawful military pension system for all new military members and some who had the option to opt-in.
If you’d kept reading the NDAA, you’d have arrived at Section 661, which (long story short) says Congress thinks military members need more financial literacy. Hence, we now have mandatory financial readiness training.
Just like BRS became law, so too did financial readiness training for the military services. Now it must be provided to military members at the intervals outlined in the law. All of the services already had some training available, but this was a far more thorough requirement.
A few weeks ago, the Air Force sent out an email announcing that the financial readiness training was debuting on 15 November. It laid out the same basic information as in the law, but in many fewer words.
Yessssss. Finally. My dreams have come true, the Air Force is gonna get some good financial literacy training. It’s happening.
What does it look like? That’s what I set out to find.
(Sorry, I don’t have access to the financial readiness training for the other services. If you do and want to help people out by providing some information via this blog, contact me!)
Air Force Financial Readiness Training on MyVector
On Friday 15 November, I logged into MyVector. There was a new Financial Readiness section on the left side of the screen.
So far, so good. When you click that link, you are taken to the start of the financial readiness training.
If you click on the blue “Register for Training” this screen pops up, showing you all the courses currently available.
When you select a course, it will have a few things to pay attention to and/or fill out. On most of the courses, those things are:
- telling you when to complete the training
- asking how you want to complete the training
- filling in your applicable date
I went through the entire drop down “Training” list to see the requirements for each. I’m showing them all here so you can read it for yourself.
Promotion Financial Readiness Training
For promotion, you take it no earlier than (NET) 90 days before and no later than (NLT) 90 days after your promotion. If you take it earlier, it won’t count towards the requirement.
This requirement to not take the training early lest it not be counted appeared to be standard. You’ll see why that’s important a little later on.
Retirement Planning Starter Financial Readiness Training
You know I’m extra excited to see this one! 👇
Except…it’s retirement training to be taken NET 90 days before and NLT 100 days after reaching 2 years of service. That’s good – it’s clearly to prepare you for fully capturing BRS matching funds. But we need retirement planning training for people who’ve been in longer, too!
I really want to see them create a retirement financial readiness training that is available to all members at all times. If anybody with influence into this training is reading this, please take that as a formal suggestion until I figure out how you actually take formal suggestions.
BTW – how is a person with 2 years in supposed to list their Date of Retirement? News Flash – nobody with 2 YOS knows *if* they will retire from the military, much less when. Plenty think they do. I am telling you from the vantage point of 15 YOS – you don’t.
Post-Deployment Financial Readiness Training
No timing requirements on this one, for some reason. And can we get a Pre-Deployment Training too? Deployments have some really unique financial advantages and situations that need to be known before you go, not after.
Marriage, Divorce, and New Child Financial Readiness Training
These each give you NET 6 months before and NLT 90 days after updating DEERS to complete the training. I like that they added these in; the financial impacts of these events often aren’t understood until it happens.
First Duty Station Financial Readiness Training
No timing requirements are listed for either one. For the Enlisted course, it says this will be completed at FTAC or at the A&FRC, but you still need to do the pre- and post-surveys through MyVector.
Obviously I wanted to see the Retirement Planning Starter course, even though I’m well past 2 YOS. That’s where I started.
Air Force Financial Readiness Training Retirement Planning Course
I picked a retirement date that was close to my 20 year mark.
It then asks if you’re sure. Good thing retirement is still at least 5 years away for me…I figure in 5 years they’ll forgive me for taking the training early!!
Just kidding…it doesn’t really let you take the training. See that reddish bar saying “You entered a date that does not fall within the allotted interval”? 👇 That’s the system not allowing me to register. It only appears for a couple seconds, so if you aren’t watching closely when you try to register you might not understand why it keeps leaving you on this page.
So I tried a date closer to today… Note to my boss, I promise I’m not trying to retire less than 2 months from now.
It asks again if you’re sure. I said yes. The things I do to bring you information!
SUCCESS 👇
I clicked on the course name to get started.
But then…
The system wouldn’t allow me to go any further. In case you can’t read that, it says “There is no content associated with this training.” I don’t know if there really is no content, or if this was the system telling me no because I’m neither at my 2 year point or my retirement point. But this was it for my dreams of taking the course. No dice.
I decided to try the Permanent Change of Station course, since I will PCS again next year. I was hoping to be more successful with that one.
Air Force Financial Readiness Training PCS Course
I don’t have my PCS date set yet, but I took a guess and put next 1 June.
And then I crossed my fingers nobody would get mad at me doing this, because honestly I don’t know when I’m moving.
But it was to no avail. Stymied again!
Even though it doesn’t list a specific time to take the PCS financial readiness training, apparently there is one. Or something is wrong with the system, I honestly don’t know. But since I actually am PCSing within a year, I decided not to push it by making up totally random dates for this one. So I moved on.
Let’s see what the newlyweds will be learning!
Air Force Financial Readiness Training Marriage Course
I’m going to assume that by now, you see how the registration works. So let’s skip ahead and just show you that I was successful. Note: I’m not really getting married…and I don’t feel bad about trying to see the training even though I’m not getting married.
Let’s do this.
I know that’s probably too small for you to read. What it says is:
The training is accompanied by survey and knowledge questions. You will be asked to provide responses at several points – before the training, immediately after the training, and several months later. Your responses are essential for ensuring these programs meet the needs of Airmen and their families. Thank you for your assistance.
There is your heads up – this really is continuing education, not the 15 minutes of financial training and then nothing else that so many of us are used to.
Now, I’m not going to show you the entire pre-survey. Some things you need to see for yourself. But here is the first question, just so you can see what it’s like.
It’s a true/false question that says “Financial problems are a leading cause of marital stress and discord.”
True. It’s true.
There were seven pre-survey questions, some of which had objective answers and some which were subjective. As soon as you select an answer it immediately moves to the next question, so you don’t have a chance to change your answer and then press “Next” like you’d assume from the presence of a “Next” button. That’s weird.
When you are done with the seven questions, it shows you your answers for review. But, it doesn’t allow you to change anything so this page is kind of a waste IMO.
Marriage Course Videos
Finally, you get to start the training.
This is Rob. He’s the Facilitator for the Marriage Course. He tells you that it’s going to be about 30 minutes long, then covers what you are going to learn:
- Communication
- Documentation
- Financial Planning (things like budgeting, credit, and banking)
- Insurance
On the right of the screen is your Training Progress. Everything already had a checkmark when I started, I don’t know why. I purposely answered one of the questions wrong (and it was just a pre-survey) so it’s not that I had tested out of the training.
From the beginning, my impression of the videos was “not bad.” They obviously spent some money on them, and the topics are good. I was looking forward to more. I liked that Financial Values was one of the first things mentioned!
What Happened Next
When I finished that first video, it was time to leave for the day on Friday 15 Nov. I decided to pick it back up this week so I could continue my review.
Except I received this email instead.
In case you can’t read the small text, it says:
Greetings,
We apologize for the erroneous email you received stating you met a financial readiness training requirement. We removed this training requirements from your profile in MyVector and are diligently working to fix the error in the system. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Air Force Personal Financial Readiness team
So long, Financial Readiness Training
When I checked MyVector, I’d been not only removed from the Marriage course, not only disenrolled from the two courses I’d managed to register for…
…I’d been completely booted from any chance of doing Financial Readiness Training.
Sigh. While I appreciate them trying to help people out when it appears people are taking training they don’t have to take…I wanted to take it! And now I can’t continue showing you what the training is like, or provide any useful review whatsoever.
So, I tried. Valiantly. But alas, I cannot give you a good idea on the quality of the training. From the small taste I was able to get, it looks promising. But for all I know it recommends newlyweds open 14 savings accounts at different banks and divvying up their money so the spouse can never find it, and I wouldn’t know because I’m not allowed to see the training. That’s frustrating, as both a personal finance blogger and a leader of Airmen.
Kind of a anti-climactic ending, no? Sorry.
The Financial Readiness tab is not visible to me. Maybe it was not ready for fielding and taken down.
I’m guessing they decided to remove it for anybody who isn’t meeting those milestones at a minimum. It’d be…interesting…if they took it down for everybody.