Second World War veteran adjusts his medals in this file photo taken in Winnipeg on November 8, 2012. (QMI Agency files)

OTTAWA - After years — in some cases, decades — of pinching pennies, thousands of disabled vets will be getting payouts as high as six figures from a class-action suit against the federal government.

“I think of all the things that we had to scrimp between myself and my wife in order to provide an education, in order to provide a nice home for our children,” said Mike Blais, a former soldier and veterans advocate injured in a UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus in 1984.

Blais is one of roughly a thousand vets who will receive a significant lump-sum under a tentative $890-million agreement announced Wednesday between the vets and the feds.

About 7,500 disabled former soldiers are eligible for some money following a five-year legal battle that ended deductions of veterans' long-term disability payments when calculating their Veterans Affairs disability pension.