Author Joe Dominguez was a founding member of the movement called Voluntary Simplicity, which started in the 1980s. While enjoying that frugal lifestyle, he eventually inspired partner Vicki Robin to co-author “Your Money or Your Life” with him a decade later. The two had met by chance in 1969 during Robin’s cross-country road trip.

Prior to co-writing that book, the two had run financial independence workshops that had become extremely popular. The book was a response to that popularity, and it spurred even more interest in their movement. They were invited to go on The Oprah Winfrey Show and received a lot of media coverage after publishing.

Dominguez lived simply until the very end. He died in 1997 after a bout with cancer. A couple days before he died, he wrote his own short eulogy, in which he celebrated “a clean bill of death” and asked all his friends to move on with their lives.