@will19
I'm 53 and my wife and I have about $194,000 in a retirement account. I sometimes worry about what would happen if we lost it all. Actually, losing it all is a very unlikely scenario- the money is with a respected financial institution- but you never know with the stock market. It could potentially lose much of its value in a short amount of time. But, I'd rather keep it in relatively risky stock mutual funds until I retire, as those are most likely to get me the gains I'd like- and I've been "playing the market" this way for over 20 years- we built up our nest-egg by investing consistently every month. After we retire, we'll probably put the money in something a little less risky and then only withdraw about 4% a year, or so.

We've also had some windfalls that we've spent. At one point, we had 2 rental houses, and when we sold them, we got quite a bit of cash. I don't quite remember what we spent the money on- although, I know we used a large chunk to put a down payment on the house we're in now. I've never been one to buy new cars, or anything particularly flashy. We did once spend 10 days driving around England. I'm more into "buying experiences".