What do you do when your accountant brain knows the numbers, your life blows up anyway, and the answer turns out to be halfway around the world in a weird little movement called FIRE? We head to New Zealand to talk with Bronwyn Candish, a chartered accountant, community builder, and one of the clearest Kiwi voices in financial independence movement. She talks to us about starting over after divorce, rebuilding from the middle, and discovering that "doing money right" has a lot less to do with credentials than with courage, alignment, and actually taking action.

This episode covers:

Growing up with scarcity in New Zealand and how that shaped Bronwyn's money mindset
Why being an accountant did not automatically make her good with money
Lifestyle creep, overbuying on housing, and drifting into paycheck-to-paycheck living
Divorce as a financial wake-up call in her late 30s
How Bronwyn found FIRE through a random article and went deep down the rabbit hole
The role of KiwiSaver, housing, and DIY culture in the New Zealand version of FI
Why community and accountability matter so much on the journey
How Bronwyn turned her accounting practice into a FIRE-adjacent coaching space
The creation of Black Friday and the growth of the Kiwi FIRE community
What it looks like to be "mid-journey" and still deeply love the path

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RESOURCES MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

KiwiFI and Black FI Day website

Sheppard & Ormsby

PocketSmith Personal Finance Software

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