I spent forty years accumulating wealth, and now I watch my peers do something that would have horrified our younger selves: they sit on their money like dragons guarding gold, terrified to spend what they worked so hard to save.
The irony is thick enough to cut. After decades of financial discipline, sacrifice, and careful planning, many people in their 60s have forgotten what the money was for in the first place.
They’ve become so skilled at saving that they can’t flip the switch to spending, even when their advisors tell them it’s safe, even when the math says they’re being too conservative.
I see this constantly among my retired friends. They check their portfolios obsessively, worry about market dips that won’t affect their actual security, and live on budgets that would make their 40-year-old selves weep. They saved for a comfortable retirement but are living like they’re still preparing for one.
The psychology of scarcity runs deeper than logic
When you’ve spent four decades in accumulation mode, your brain doesn’t just switch off that programming because you hit 65. The habits that served you well—checking prices, delaying gratification, choosing the practical option over the pleasurable one—these become part of your identity.
I noticed this in myself after retirement. Standing in a restaurant, I’d still order the cheaper entree, not because I needed to, but because some part of me couldn’t accept that the rules had changed. The spreadsheet said I could afford the steak, but my nervous system hadn’t gotten the memo.
David Blanchett and Michael Finke, Research Fellows at the Retirement Income Institute, found that “Retirees spend a much higher percentage of their lifetime income (about 80%) and spend about half the amount that they could safely spend from other sources.”
This tells you everything about how we mentally categorize money. When it feels like income, we spend it. When it feels like savings, we hoard it.
The cruel joke is that this scarcity mindset doesn’t protect you; it robs you. It steals experiences, comfort, and joy during the very years you saved up to enjoy them.
Status anxiety doesn’t retire when you do
Here’s what nobody tells you about retirement: losing your professional identity creates a void that money anxieties rush to fill. When you no longer have a title, a role, or a clear place in the professional hierarchy, your net worth becomes one of the last scorecards you have left.
I’ve watched successful executives, people who commanded respect and authority, become obsessed with their account balances after retirement. Not because they need the money, but because watching that number grow is the only achievement metric they have left. Spending feels like going backwards, like losing points in a game they can’t stop playing.
The incentives have completely reversed, but the behavior hasn’t caught up. During your working years, saving meant progress.
Now, strategic spending is what creates value—experiences with grandchildren, travel while you’re healthy, supporting causes you care about. But that mental shift requires acknowledging that you’re in a fundamentally different life phase, and that’s harder than any financial calculation.
Fear of the unknown trumps fear of missing out
Every financial planner will tell you about safe withdrawal rates, about how 4% annually is conservative, about Monte Carlo simulations showing you’ll be fine. But what they can’t calculate is how long you’ll live, what medical catastrophe might await, or whether the market will do something unprecedented.
This uncertainty paralysis is real. You can have two million dollars and still lie awake wondering if it’s enough. The “what ifs” multiply in retirement because you know there’s no earning your way out of a mistake anymore. No overtime, no bonus, no next promotion to bail you out.
I’ve found that people who break through this fear share something specific: they’ve defined what “enough” means to them in concrete terms, not abstract numbers. They know what lifestyle they want, what legacy they want to leave, and what risks they’re actually protecting against versus imagining.
Nobody wants to be the cautionary tale at the country club, the one who spent too freely and had to downsize. This fear of judgment keeps people living far below their means, performing financial prudence for an audience that isn’t even watching.
Bridget Bearden, EBRI’s Research and Development Strategist, reports that 70% of retirees said their spending is at or below what they can afford. Think about that. Seven out of ten retirees are essentially underutilizing their resources, living smaller lives than they planned for.
The social dynamics here are fascinating. We signal financial responsibility by denying ourselves pleasures we can afford, as if there’s virtue in unnecessary frugality. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking on experiences we’ll never get another chance at.
Breaking the spell requires deliberate action
The solution isn’t to become reckless with money. It’s to become intentional about spending in ways that align with why you saved in the first place. This means confronting some uncomfortable truths about mortality, purpose, and what actually matters when professional achievement is behind you.
Start small. Pick one thing you’ve been denying yourself that you can clearly afford—maybe it’s flying business class to see your grandchildren, joining that golf club, or finally taking the photography course you’ve been postponing.
Do it. Pay attention to how it feels, not just the spending, but the experience itself.
Create spending goals alongside your saving goals. If you saved diligently for forty years, you can learn to spend thoughtfully now. It’s still financial planning, just pointed in a different direction.
Most importantly, recognize that underspending your retirement is just as much a failure as overspending it. You didn’t sacrifice and save all those years to die with the highest account balance. You did it to have choices, to have security, and yes, to have enjoyment.
Closing thoughts
The transition from accumulation to distribution isn’t just mathematical; it’s psychological, social, and deeply personal. After a lifetime of measuring success by how much you could save, learning to spend wisely feels like learning to write with your opposite hand.
But here’s what I’ve learned at 64: the money in your accounts is just potential energy. It only becomes valuable when you convert it into actual life—experiences, comfort, generosity, peace of mind.
The tragedy isn’t dying with too little; it’s dying with too much, having missed the whole point of why you saved it.
Tomorrow morning, look at your portfolio not as a score to maximize but as a tool to use. Ask yourself what experience or comfort you’re denying yourself out of habit rather than necessity. Then give yourself permission to live the life you saved for. That’s not irresponsible; that’s the entire point.
