I saved $3 million but was afraid to spend it when I retired. Here’s how I changed my mindset after being frugal for decades.

• During his 40-year career, Scott Scovel saved $3 million for his retirement.

• But when he retired, he was so fixated on saving that he struggled to start spending.

• Spending tactics, such as a $50,000 “war chest” helped him adopt a carpe diem approach.

I spent my life scrambling and worrying about my retirement portfolio and savings, and by the time I was 58 in 2020, they were worth $3 million — more than enough to retire and cover health care for the rest of my life.

However, I worried about worst-case scenarios, such as hyperinflation leaving me with nothing. So I worked another year. And another.

For decades, I had heard retirement advice urging me to “save more!” But no one explained that at some point, I would need to radically change my lifestyle and “spend more!”

I was fixated on saving until an old college classmate died at age 59 in 2022. I was the same age, and his death disturbed me greatly. Realizing that I had more money than time, I decided it was time to stop working.

A few weeks later, one day before my 60th birthday, I quit my full-time job as the head of pricing at a software company. I had made the transition to the next phase of my life, but my savings-oriented mindset struggled to change.

I was proud of my disciplined approach to saving

I had been saving for retirement since the beginning of my career, when I worked as a junior portfolio analyst at a financial planning company. I chose to have my company deduct 10% of each of my wages and put it into a retirement fund. They partially matched my contributions, too, and instilled in me the importance of saving for retirement.

I continued this habit throughout my 20s and 30s. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve strived to make the maximum 401(k) contribution allowed by the IRS each year, including the excess catch-up amount they allow once you turn 50. Fortunately, my career as a product and general manager in various industries, including banking, media and technology, provided me with the means to contribute steadily to my retirement plans.

Over nearly 40 years, I had put money into retirement accounts from almost every paycheck, deferring today’s happiness to ensure tomorrow’s happiness.

To maximize long-term returns, I invested in equity mutual funds in each of my employer’s retirement plans, the most aggressive US funds plus some international ones as well. Every time I moved companies, I rolled over my funds with my employer into low-cost Vanguard IRAs. I didn’t worry if the market went up or down, as I knew in the long run, stocks significantly outperformed cash or bonds.

By the end of my 50s, thanks to the power of compound interest, my savings had grown to more than $3 million. Besides, I was at my house. My gut felt that I probably had enough money to retire, and then I confirmed by reading many investment articles, talking to experts and friends, and building a multi-page spreadsheet that breaks down my finances.

I was financially, but not mentally, ready to retire

At first, it was uncomfortable to see my savings dwindle, and I had such a work-to-the-drop mentality that I couldn’t even think of myself as “retiring.” I told myself I was taking a three-month vacation before deciding on the next stage of my career.

I realized that I needed to rewire my mind and approach to personal finance to ease my transition into retirement and enjoy spending as much as I loved saving. This helped me to stop working more willingly.

When my three month “vacation” ended, I extended it by a few months and then a few more. I just started my 38th^th a month of vacation. And now, when my taskmaster’s mind is distracted, I even tell people that I am retired.

I give myself a ‘paycheck’ and have a ‘war-chest’ for fun experiences

I budgeted that I needed $7,500 a month to cover expenses during retirement, which I initially manually transferred from my savings to my checking account. But then, my frugal instincts kicked in, and I wondered if I could get by with $6,500 instead by cutting back on things like eating out or buying clothes.

An automatic monthly transfer was a much better solution. I discovered this approach in an article about retirement, but took it further by calling it “my paycheck.” This language has lessened my suffering, and as a result, I never have to worry about my withdrawal, nor am I tempted to wonder about anything.

Another effective anti-saving tool is my “war-chest”, which is a pot of money that I set aside each year for fun experiences, some of which are taken from my monthly “paycheck”.

I aim to pay myself about $50,000 a year for this war chest, so that I can travel extensively while still in my early 60s, physically fit, and in my “go-go” stage of retirement. I will reassess the annual war-sider amount as I get older, and reach the “slow-go” and “no-go” retirement stages. My financial planning suggests that I should be able to stick with my $7,500 a month “paycheck” and war-chest retirement, both of which increase annually at the rate of inflation, until I’m 95.

In the spirit of carpe diemI’ve enjoyed recent chest-war experiences like witnessing the Great Wildebeest Migration in Kenya, paying extra to get near-invisible hearing aids that make me less self-conscious, and seeing my girlfriend’s delight when I started her broken dishwasher. At the end of the year, I consider any money left in my war chest as lost enjoyment, not savings.

For decades, I acted like Aesop’s proverbial ant, which worked all summer to store food for the winter, while the grasshopper played and then starved to death.

Thanks to my vacation mentality, paychecks, and war-chest, I have become wiser. I enjoy retiring because I am both toiled like the ant in the past and now safely revel like the grasshopper in the present.

Do you have a retirement savings story to share? Contact the editor, Charissa Cheong, at ccheong@businessinsider.com

Read the original article on Business Insider