Very interesting question and thread. I love reading everyone's perspective.
DH and I are in our mid-40s, so not retirement age. However, my approach to money is very different from my parents' approach.
My parents were born around the time of the Great Depression. Growing up, they were money hoarders and very cheap. I never got new clothes, always hand-me-downs, and I had to start buying my own clothes in middle school with babysitting jobs. They had money, they just didn't want to spend it.
Fast forward many years later, when my parents hit theirs 60s and 70s they finally decided they could spend some of their money to travel. The problem was that they couldn't physically handle a lot of travel. They booked their dream vacation two years ago, and ended up having to cancel it because my dad got sick and died a few months later.
My mom is now sitting on way more money than she needs, but she still doesn't like to part with it. She lives in an assisted living place and has a very small, old television. We've tried to talk her into getting a new tv, for example, but she won't.
So with that said, I don't want to hoard money. After all, you can't take it with you. We travel a few times a year, mostly using credit card miles and points but we supplement it with cash. We don't go into debt for it, but we still spend a significant percentage on travel. My husband has always wanted to go to New Zealand, so we are going next year. Sure, it would be cheaper to wait until our kids are grown and out of the house and just go by ourselves, but there is no guarantee that our health will be good at that time.
I also make it a point to be generous to my kids and buy them decent clothes so that they are not made fun of at school like I was.