Financial Wake Up Call: Taking Control of Your Money

👀 Sneak peek for last Sunday’s Episode 212 with Bronwyn Candish, a chartered accountant by day—and one of the most energetic voices in Kiwi FIRE by night. We’re heading “down under” to New Zealand to talk late-starting, divorce wake-up calls, money mindset shifts, and what FI looks like in a country with a very different retirement system and mortgage structure.

She joins us in this episode to:
🎯 Share her origin story—growing up on tight budgets with parents on benefits, learning thrift early, and still feeling “behind” even as an accountant.
✅ Reveal the turning point: marriage + lifestyle creep + maxed-out house debt… then divorce—and realizing she had to stop deferring money decisions and take control.
👣 Compare NZ vs. US money systems: short-term mortgage rate resets, the Kiwi student loan model, and how KiwiSaver (NZ’s retirement scheme) fits into building wealth.
🧠 Explain how she found FIRE (accidentally), why the community is smaller in a country of 5M people, and how she started building the tribe anyway—meetups, “Black Friday” anti-consumption camp vibes, and a growing FI movement across NZ.
❤️ Leave late starters with the real lesson: it’s not a knowledge problem—it’s an action problem… and FIRE is easier (and way more fun) with friends and accountability.

#CatchingUptoFI #KiwiFIRE #NewZealand #FIREMovement #FinancialIndependence #LateStarterFI #FIcommunity #MoneyMindset #DivorceAndMoney #LifestyleCreep #DebtFreeJourney #KiwiSaver #PersonalFinance #Budgeting #InvestingBasics #FinancialLiteracy #CommunityBuilding #TimeFreedom #ChooseFI #BorderlessFI

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