This story was first published on RNZ.
Te Kahukura Boynton of Māori Millionaire is on a mission to bridge the wealth gap by shining a light on how to make better money decisions more clearly - even when times are tough.
The entrepreneur, speaker, podcaster, financial influencer, and author of Māori Millionaire: A beginner’s Guide to Building Better Money Habits talked with Stacey Morrison about using her platform to help people build better financial literacy, and how people can get started.
“My saying recently is that you can’t financial-literacy your way out of survival mode”, Boynton says.
“Traditional money advice, it doesn’t address the root causes for why people actually make the money decisions that they make - over 80 percent of the time we’re actually making emotional decisions when it comes to money.”
“What I see a lot in the financial industry is that people are told to just behave better, to have more willpower, to be more disciplined, but it doesn’t actually address why people make those money decisions.”
It can be hard to see a way forward that fits, or to even face looking at the problem, she says.
“I love that financial literacy is becoming more normalised to talk about and I see a lot of wins in this industry, but what I would love to see more of is trauma-informed financial literacy - actually addressing why do people make those decisions. Even if we’re not talking about colonisation at an individual level, things like physical abuse or emotional abuse, these things can leave abandonment wounds, or things that make you have a different relationship with money.”
“Back when I didn’t have much money, I would way rather spend a small amount of money to buy something that’s going to give me a quick dopamine fix, as opposed to putting that small amount of money towards something that’s going to help me long term. This is a direct result of not only colonisation, but even trauma that people have experienced, even if you’re not indigenous or if you’re not Māori.”
Recognising some of the things making money an uphill battle
Recognising money pitfalls is easier if we can identify the things at play influencing us, so we can make clearer decisions, Boynton says.
“People want quick ways to give themselves a sense of relief, and especially in times of economic difficulties people are craving that - and so it’s much easier to buy something small to make an emotional money decision, as opposed to doing something that’s going to serve your long term self.
“In 2026 everything is designed to give us quick hits of dopamine - we have more people spending time on their phone. I read something recently that said I think it was like 80 percent of people play on their phones before they fall asleep and first thing in the morning. These are habits we haven’t seen before.
“So everything is designed to teach us that we need quick fixes of dopamine - we’re thinking short term more these days.”
Boynton says before she turned her financial situation she was making bad habits as a way of responding to stresses.
“I didn’t know how to manage my emotions. I was previously a drug addict, so I’d spend a lot of money on drugs if anything happened, or I would end up at the McDonald’s drive-through or I’d be at Kmart, because those were the only ways I knew to cope with my emotions. So telling me to just spend my money better to save more wasn’t actually going to help, because I didn’t have any tools to cope with my emotions other than to spend money to get relief.
“Especially for Māori, Pasifika, or lower income earners, they can carry a lot of shame when the only conversation is ‘spend less, invest more’, and it’s a very simple way of looking at it and it doesn’t address the inequities we see at a systems level. So my goal is that people are actually having a wider conversation, a deeper level conversation about why people make their money decisions, not just telling people to behave better.”
What does help?
The first step Boynton recommends is to start a money diary to build self-awareness about what prompts those decisions to buy things. It’s a simple tool, and she still finds it useful now.
“I would note down: What am I buying? How much am I spending? How does it make me feel? and Is this a good investment in myself? ... colour coded green or red if it was yes or no ... Does this have a positive return on my life or a negative return on my life?
“A lot of people, because they’re carrying shame they’ll do this exercise and then they’ll start having a lot of negative self talk: ‘I shouldn’t have done that’, ‘Why do I always do this?’ ‘I always have these bad habits’. But what I’d encourage people to do is just take note. We live in a very fast world, we have payWave, everything just moves so quickly. And we’ve become disconnected from our tinana - from our bodies.
“So what I’d encourage people to do is pause a little bit, so when you go to the supermarket, when you spend money, don’t just carry on as you would do, but just notice the feelings in your body. Do you feel a little bit of guilt when you buy things you know you probably shouldn’t? Do you feel excitement when you buy the designer things that you want, or you buy new clothes? Just notice the sensations in your body. What are you feeling?”
Then once a week she checks over her experiences from the week - what she calls her Sunday money reset, which helps her see positive next steps she can take.
“At the end of every week ... I go back and I think ‘Okay, I notice that on Monday I went to the dairy, and I bought dah da dah da dah - and I actually didn’t need to do that if I just did my groceries on Sunday’.
“So if you have this reflective exercise once per week, when you’re starting to build these better money habits you can go: ‘Ok, I notice that I did that and I don’t really want to do that any more. What systems can I implement so that I don’t do this moving forward?’
“Then I would go ... so this week I’m going to do all my meal prepping on Sunday, and I’m going to buy enough food for the week, so that I avoid going to the dairy. Or whatever it is for each person, everyone has different money habits.”
“A lot of people don’t realise how much money they actually spend or where it’s actually going, because ...we live in a very fast world. It’s designed to go quickly, so just slowing down a little bit helps you to understand your money habits. Then when you have more self awareness, you can actually choose different habits.”
Different challenges for different people
Each person has their own underlying tensions at play in how they might use money, Boynton says.
Some have a scarcity mindset, where they may have lots of feelings of guilt or panic associated with money. Some people are avoidant, feeling overwhelmed by money matters and finding it difficult to face or to start taking steps. We can experience different combinations of these at different times, Boynton says, as she has.
But what we should ideally want to build is what she calls a secure attachment approach to money:
“Where I’m at now and where most people would love to be is feeling secure when it comes to money. So I have a plan with my finances, I’m regularly checking in, I know my numbers, I know what’s coming in, what’s going out. I feel very secure, I feel very safe. I’ve got my safety net there if anything should happen, I’ve got insurance. I just feel on top of my money ... and what it gives you is it gives you some breathing space.
“Back when I was worried all the time it felt like I was almost drowning all the time with all of it, and I couldn’t even get up out from the water to have a look and go ‘where are we headed now’.
“But now that I feel more secure I have more energy to focus on my business, I have more energy to focus on my hauora, my health. And that’s where most people want to get, is having a secure relationship with money.”
What about getting through the truly tight times?
Boynton says she recognises that for many households times are really tough at the moment with the cost of living crisis.
And that stress can be when we tend to fall back into our most chaotic money patterns, she says: “It’s completely understandable if you’re choosing between buying gas for the car or putting kai on the table.”
“But what I would do is be very mindful about your thoughts and what you’re putting your energy into.”
Spending a lot of time and energy absorbed in big picture things we can’t control and social media can sap our resources, she says.
“What I like to say is ‘I’m not the cost of living gods, I can’t control this - but what I can control is what I’m focusing on’. I started focusing on my business and what are the things within my control.”
One down to earth tip is focusing on our health during lean times: “When you are healthier you’re able to make better decisions,” she says.
“So making sure I’m not missing my morning walk or my morning exercise - which is free, so that I have a bit more energy ... so that I just have a lot more mental head space to go ‘okay, what more can I focus on today’.”
Then you can put some thinking time into the challenges, having a look at your money situation and the pressures.
“You can go, okay my costs have increased $50 a week as a result of all of this, or $100 as a result of all of this. How can I bring in an extra $50 or $100 a week? And then you might go - actually, I could mow my neighbour’s lawns, or I could do this. Just coming up with random things ...
“I like to do a mindmap. What is within my control, and what can I actually do about this? And when you start to think about solutions, your brain starts to come up with all of these cool ideas ... and then you get to go through and ...trial a few things. Not everything will work, but you can give it a crack and what that does is it builds your confidence.
“And - wow, I made $50 today. Wow, imagine if I made like $500 next week. You can get in that energy of ‘Cool, I can do something about this!’, and you can pull back your power.”
She also recommends not to keep reflexively looking at the progress of long-term investments like KiwiSaver or retirement plans regularly during times the market is chaotic, as it can create a sense of helplessness.
“Something I’ve heard a lot of people says is ‘I’ve logged in and I’ve lost $5000!’... If you log in and notice that there’s $5000 gone, that feels very overwhelming, that can cause a lot of anxiety.
“If it’s a long-term investment, I’m talking over 10 years, you’re looking at a long time horizon. Things like what’s going on right now are within reason - they do go up, they do go down, there’s actually nothing we can do about it. I’m in it for the long term.
“So what I would do is make sure that you are in the right fund... you can seek financial advice just to make sure it is in the right fund - so if say you’re wanting to buy a house you should make sure your financial advisor knows that.”
- RNZ
