Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
An AI narration of the article 'The First Extreme Saver' by Jake Desyllas.
Extreme saving — putting away fifty percent or more of your income to reach financial independence within a decade — feels like a recent invention, the work of FIRE bloggers and Joe Dominguez's *Your Money Or Your Life*. It isn't. In this episode Jake traces the idea back to the Victorian bestseller Samuel Smiles, whose 1875 book *Thrift* made the case to ordinary working people that saving was both a personal virtue and a social good, and casually recommended savings rates that today's audiences would find startling. The piece is a short reminder that frugality and long-horizon thinking used to be mainstream advice, not a fringe lifestyle — and an invitation to ask why that shifted.
First published at jakedesyllas.com/blog/2016/11/4/the-first-extreme-saver on 14 November 2016.
An AI narration of the article 'The First Extreme Saver' by Jake Desyllas.
Extreme saving — putting away fifty percent or more of your income to reach financial independence within a decade — feels like a recent invention, the work of FIRE bloggers and Joe Dominguez's *Your Money Or Your Life*. It isn't. In this episode Jake traces the idea back to the Victorian bestseller Samuel Smiles, whose 1875 book *Thrift* made the case to ordinary working people that saving was both a personal virtue and a social good, and casually recommended savings rates that today's audiences would find startling. The piece is a short reminder that frugality and long-horizon thinking used to be mainstream advice, not a fringe lifestyle — and an invitation to ask why that shifted.
First published at jakedesyllas.com/blog/2016/11/4/the-first-extreme-saver on 14 November 2016.
