Vicki Robin

Vicki Robin was born in Oklahoma and grew up on Long Island, New York. She graduated from Brown University in 1967 and tried a career as an actress. At 23 she received an inheritance from her grandmother. She left acting and set out on a road trip through the United States and Mexico.

On that trip she met Joe Dominguez, a former Wall Street analyst who had retired at 31. Together they tested frugal living, lived on the interest from Treasury bonds, and gave their time to environmental and charitable causes. They taught their nine-step method in workshops and then wrote Your Money or Your Life (1992). The book asks readers to track every dollar, work out their real hourly wage, and ask whether each purchase is worth the hours of life it costs. After an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, it became a bestseller. She revised it in 2008 and 2018.

Robin lives on Whidbey Island, Washington. In Blessing the Hands That Feed Us she wrote about a month of eating only food grown within ten miles of her home. Followers of the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement name her as an influence.