The Māori Millionaire Te Kahukura Boynton on her financial, mindset and health journey - The Prosperity Project

Te Kahukura Boynton founded Māori Millionaire. She was taught to work hard and always try her best. Photo / Te Kahukura Boynton

Twenty-one-year-old Te Kahukura Boynton is best known as the ”Maori Millionaire” – and although she isn’t there just yet, you wouldn’t bet against her getting there by her self-imposed deadline of 25.

She’s built a movement aimed at changing the game financially not just for herself, but for her people. She’s an entrepreneur, speaker, podcaster and now an author of Māori Millionaire: A Beginner’s Guide to Building Better Money Habits.

She told Nadine Higgins on The Prosperity Project podcast that she decided to share her journey from broke uni student to millionaire because she couldn’t find others she could relate to online, who might show her the way.

“I looked at them and I thought, well, you know, you’ve already achieved your goals, you’re already so far ahead of me and I realised that there was no one who was speaking to the version who I was at that stage – just a complete beginner wanting to improve my life.”

Aware that many of her people who were much older than her were stuck in the same poverty cycle she was, “I realised that my life would continue to play out in this way unless I was able to find a way to do it differently.”

Boynton’s journey of self-improvement has been both financial and physical, having lost 75 kilos along the way.

She said there’s a correlation between saving money and losing weight, from simple moves such as cutting out trips to the dairy that she realised weren’t helping her goals.

“Really changing my mindset about where I was putting my money to use impacted this. Obviously, there’s a lot of diet and exercise and all of that involved, but the money piece is so huge and I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I didn’t change my mindset about where I was spending my money.

“I used to think that a gym membership was a waste of money. I was like, why would anyone pay to like go and run on a treadmill when you can just like go outside? Whereas now I’m like, I will pay for this because it’s gonna help me become that millionaire version of me.”

Making change, she says, requires the right mindset – something she’s worked hard to improve.

“I can’t afford it as a statement, it doesn’t create solutions, but asking yourself the question, ‘how can I [afford it]’ - you’re going to come up with all of these answers.”

Her motivation, though, is not about fancy cars or handbags – but wanting to lift others up.

“So many people are struggling, but what we see is that Māori and Pasifika are disproportionately struggling, and what I want to be is a light for my people to show us that change is possible.”

While finance books have a reputation for being dense reading, Boyton offers this guarantee to those who read hers.

“You will not need a dictionary to read this book, and I can’t say the same for a lot of personal finance books.”

Listen to the full episode of The Prosperity Project for more

The podcast is hosted by Nadine Higgins, an experienced broadcaster and a financial adviser at Enable Me.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released every Monday.