Rorie Manaia Studios.
Te Kahukura Boynton has been a self-proclaimed hustler since she was a child. Seeing how money impacted the lives of those who did and didn’t have it around her.
She decided financial prosperity was a priority from a very early age. At eight, she read money bible Rich Dad, Poor Dad, sold a toy cot to the local daycare centre and went door to door selling pens she found around home.
“I was always trying to find ways to make money,” Te Kahukura, now 21, remembers.
“I busked at Pak’nSave with a ukelele I borrowed from school, and one day made $60 in half an hour and thought I was balling.”
Then at 18, during the hardest year of her life, she began an online social media account called Māori Millionaire. Detailing her aspirational journey to become just that. It was a gutsy move for a teen who shares that at the time. She was desperately battling with her physical and mental health, and had an unhealthy relationship with money.
Living with endometriosis – a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows painfully in other places. Te Kahukura was in near-constant pain and turned to drugs to manage it when, she says, prescribed medications weren’t working.
In her first semester studying law at the University of Waikato. She says her rock bottom came when she had to ask family to help pay her rent.
“I was grateful, but so embarrassed and never wanted to have to ask others to help pay my bills again,” she tells.
“On the last day of 2021, I made a New Year’s resolution to start Māori Millionaire. I was at my lowest, but I realised my life would continue as it was unless I made changes.”
Now she has 60,000 followers online. “It’s called Māori Millionaire, but the vision is so big, it goes beyond money. It’s about bridging the wealth gap.”
While many supported Te Kahukura putting herself out there, plenty of people also vocally opposed her.
“I got a lot of hate when I first started,” she reveals.
“I had friends laughing at the content I was creating – people asking what I thought I was doing because I’m not a millionaire. “Some said pūtea [money] isn’t a Māori concept and you can’t tie them together.
My response is, ‘Is poverty a Māori concept?’ My goal here is to be a light to show our whānau we can achieve our goals and if you have a vision or dream, you can do what it takes to get there.” And Te Kahukura is doing just that.
This year, she was a Young New Zealander of the Year semi-finalist and Girls in Business Finalist for Excellence in Innovation. Next week, her debut book Māori Millionaire: A Beginner’s Guide to Building Better Money Habits will hit shelves. It’s the first personal finance book by a Māori author, and after two-and-a-half years of writing and editing. Te Kahukura couldn’t be prouder.
“Getting asked to write a book remains a life high-light for me,” she says. “It makes me so happy that when our whānau go into a bookstore and are looking at the personal finance shelf, there’s one there that has Māori in it.”
The goal is still the same – to become a Māori Millionaire – and after launching a six-figure media company in 2022. Te Kahukura is well on her way. She has also overcome drug addiction and lost 75kg, transforming her health. Now, on any given day, she could be recording podcasts, travelling the country to host workshops, touring schools or coaching clients.
“There have been so many pinch-me moments, but when people send a message and say, ‘I listened to your podcast and learned how to save my money – thank you for sharing this,’ that means the world to me,” she says.
“It’s something I didn’t have access to, someone to relate to, but now I’m able to be that for others.”
Most of all, Te Kahukura is overjoyed to live a life of freedom. One she’s dreamed of since she was a little girl.
“Being with my whānau means so much to me and now I have the freedom to go visit my nan randomly in the middle of the day.”
