Financial Literacy Month: Investing for Retirement 101 – Nashua City Employee Wellness Seminar – April 20, 2026
Financial Literacy Month: Investing for Retirement 101 – Nashua City Employee Wellness Seminar – April 20, 2026
On April 20, 2026, Christy Knalt, coordinator of wellness resources for the city of Nashua, introduced Mike Tomlin from Empower as the new representative for the city's 457B plan. The presentation, held during Financial Literacy Month, covered fundamental investing concepts, the power of compound interest, pre-tax vs. Roth contributions, 457B plan features, and retirement planning strategies.
Presentation Overview
- Mike Tomlin used a time-value-of-money calculator (investor.gov) to illustrate compound growth: a hypothetical new hire saving $500/month for 35 years at a 7% annual return would accumulate approximately $1,033,000. He emphasized the "race to $100,000" as the point where compounding becomes noticeable.
- The Rule of 72 was explained: at a 6% return, money doubles in 12 years; at 7%, in about 10 years.
- Pre-tax contributions reduce current taxable income and grow tax-deferred, taxed as ordinary income upon withdrawal. Roth contributions are made after tax, but qualified withdrawals (including earnings) are tax-free.
- The 457B plan offers flexibility: participants control contribution amounts, investments, and timing of withdrawals. Required minimum distributions begin at age 73 or 75.
Discussion Items
- Contribution Limits for 2026: Standard limit is $24,500. Age 50+ catch-up: additional $8,000 (total $32,500). For ages 60–63, a special catch-up of $11,250 (total $35,750). A pre-retirement catch-up allows up to $49,000 annually for three years before retirement, based on unused prior contributions.
- Secure Act 2.0 Change: Participants earning over $150,000 in FICA wages must make post-50 catch-up contributions as Roth dollars. This does not apply to those without FICA wages (e.g., certain public safety employees not in Social Security).
- Plan Loans: One loan at a time. General purpose loans: 12–60 months. Principal residence loans: up to 10 years (documentation required). Current interest rate: 6.75%. Fees: $50 origination + $25 quarterly. Interest is credited to the borrower's account.
- Investment Options: Three investor types: (1) "Do it for me" – managed through My Total Retirement (additional fee), (2) "Help me do it" – target date funds or online advice, (3) "Do it myself" – self-directed with a full fund lineup. Target date funds use a glide path that shifts from stocks to fixed income as retirement approaches.
- Rollovers: Old 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and IRAs (except Roth IRAs) can be rolled into the 457B plan. Empower provides rollover specialists.
- Q&A Highlights:
- Retirees can take systematic withdrawals or ad hoc amounts; minimum 20% tax withholding is typical, but participants should consult a tax advisor.
- Participants can change their investment portfolio at any time via the Empower website, adjusting both current holdings and future allocations. Some funds may have trading restrictions (e.g., 90-day limits).
- Enrollment is available at empower.com by entering Social Security number and other information.
- The relationship between the 457B plan (provided by the city) and Empower (selected vendor) is record-keeping and participant education.
Key Outcomes
- Mike Tomlin encouraged attendees to: (1) enroll in the 457B plan if not already enrolled, (2) register for online access, (3) consider increasing contribution rates, especially with raises or promotions, (4) schedule a retirement readiness review (available in June, or at upcoming benefits fairs in May), (5) update beneficiary designations, and (6) download the Empower mobile app.
- No formal votes or decisions were made; the session was educational. Attendees were directed to contact Mike Tomlin directly (914-355-6624) or the Empower call center (available until 10 p.m. ET weekdays and Saturdays 9 a.m.–5:30 p.m.) for further assistance.
Meeting Transcript
Everyone for coming today. My name is Christy Knalt. I coordinate the wellness resources here at the city of Nashua. Today we have Mike Tomlin from Empower. He's our rep, our new rep, actually. So nice to meet you for those that haven't. And he'll be going through just it's it's really it's financial literacy month, and we're just investing for our future 101. He's just gonna hit on some of the high points of investing and things that we should all be paying attention to, especially nowadays with our money. It's very important to have that sense of what's happening. So I'm gonna turn it over. And um questions that come up, um, Mike's gonna just repeat them just so that we can make sure that those that are watching the presentation after the fact can hear your questions because none of your faces are in the recording. So just thank you. So good afternoon. Before we get started in the presentation, I like to do a quick kind of illustration about what we're talking about. Like start with the why. Why are we talking about retirement planning? How does this all work? And a picture is worth a thousand words. And also, I think a lot of the times when we get into the presentation, we talk a lot about things like you know, pre-tax, Roth, and it's the nuts and bolt of what we do instead of the story and kind of focusing. So this is investor.gov. It's a financial tool that you can use. This is essentially what we would call a time value of money calculation. So it's gonna look at a couple of things. What your initial investment is, how much you're saving monthly, um, your interest rate you're assuming, and it can't kind of give you a final value. And so we'll just say we're gonna use a hypothetical new hire or someone who's starting today. So they have zero dollars saved for retirement. They're gonna do $500 a month. That's their um commitment. And we'll say they're gonna save for 35 years. And we'll use historically the stock market does about 10%, but we're gonna use a number like seven. We're gonna be a little more conservative. Number one, because you can invest directly in the stock market. Number two, um, it also will kind of show the impact of fees um and not being 100% of the market. And then we'll we're not gonna show a variance, and then we're gonna hit calculate. Actually, I won't change that to what this shows us is if you started and you save for 35 years at 500 a month, you're gonna get to a number of 1 million 33,000. So I like million because it's a nice round number, it's a nice target for people. But what you can see here is in the blue line on the bottom shows how much you're contributed. The red line shows how much it's grown to. So the delta or the difference of those is how much interest you're earning and how much that's compounding on top of your investments. And one of the things you might notice is you get out to about actually I can't step too far from the mic, but you'll get out to about year 12 on the bottom. And the number between what you're saving and what you've invested is pretty close. So a lot of times people will say to me, I've been saving for retirement. I don't feel like I'm earning what I'm earning. It shows me this big number on the, but it's not really growing. And so what I typically tell people is it's kind of a race to 100,000. So that's when you get to six figures. That's when you start to really feel that impact of compounding. So if you're making 10% and you have 10,000, you might have $1,000 in interest in gains. But if you have 100,000, well, now you have 10,000. And keep in mind, we're putting away 500 a month.
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