Veronica Deraleau - For the Person Who’s Ready to Change Their Relationship With Money
Making Money Is Simple: Veronica on Money Mindset, Debt Freedom and Brave Money Conversations
Veronica graduated into the Great Recession with six figures of student debt. She paid it off in three years on a starter salary. Today she is a financial coach and bestselling author, and she helps families find the same clarity she found.
On this episode of Conversations with Carroll, Carroll Patrizi welcomes Veronica, author of Making Money Is Simple. In Carroll’s day, people rarely talked about money. She’s grateful that has changed, because whether you’re starting your first job or moving toward retirement, money conversations matter.
What Veronica Learned About Money Growing Up
Veronica’s parents rarely talked about money directly. She learned from signals instead: comparing families, overhearing struggles, and absorbing a lot of unspoken programming.
The one clear message came from her mother: as a young woman, you need your own money and the ability to support yourself. Carroll called it a beautiful piece of advice. Each of us needs to take responsibility for becoming financially literate.
From Opera Singer to Financial Coach
Veronica has always been creative. She is a trained opera singer with a vocal performance degree. Her practical mother hoped she’d choose health care, so Veronica followed her interest in economics and earned a dual degree in business and music.
After graduation, she joined an early-stage energy startup in New York. There she worked with real estate owners and operators, and she caught the real estate bug.
The missing piece: start with the end in mind
Working alongside high-net-worth investors, Veronica watched how they planned deals:
Start with the long-term outcome you want.
Reverse engineer the revenue and expense steps needed to get there.
Track your progress against the plan along the way.
Even with a business degree, she hadn’t connected those dots until she saw them working in real life. She applied the same approach to her own finances and paid off her six-figure debt in three years.
Carroll noted that in four years of business school, no one had talked with students about graduating with debt or how to pay it off. That conversation belongs in education.
A calling during COVID
Veronica finished paying off her debt in 2020, just as COVID put many of her artist friends out of work overnight. She felt called to share what she’d learned and began offering free webinars for musicians. That service grew into her coaching business.
Even wealthy investors hire trained professionals and dedicated staff to carry out their financial plans. Veronica wondered what hope everyday families had without a clear blueprint: the right steps, in the right order, and where to gain leverage quickly.
Mindset Comes First
Making Money Is Simple focuses on mindset. It’s short, story-based and approachable for any reader. It walks through Veronica’s four-step model:
Awaken
Reframe
Intention
Action
Veronica says mindset is what keeps people from backtracking. You have to be in the right place mentally before you can take in practical advice and make big changes.
Carroll agreed. Everything begins with mindset, because we all carry beliefs about money, often handed down from the generations before us.
Letting go of what doesn’t serve you
Veronica wanted to stand out in a noisy online world. In a business built on trust, she chose vulnerability and shared her own story, including resentment from her childhood.
Resentment grows when expectations don’t pan out, she explains. At some point she realized those feelings weren’t moving her toward the outcome she wanted. Sometimes you have to set down a mindset because it isn’t serving you, even when it feels justified.
Carroll applauded that choice to surrender what wasn’t serving her and share the lesson with others. Storytelling, she said, is where we educate best.
Who Veronica Helps
Veronica has worked in finance for about 15 years. Her coaching business is about a year and a half old, and she has already helped dozens of families turn their finances around.
She works especially closely with groups she knows from her own life:
Military families. Veronica joined the U.S. Army Reserve in college, where she met her husband, who now serves full time. She is a veteran and an Army spouse who understands frequent moves firsthand. Military families are used to doing hard things, she says, so they’re ready to make big changes.
Creatives and entrepreneurs, including those who launched ventures after COVID without a financial foundation.
First-generation American professionals.
Anyone whose income has grown but who still feels stuck, a sign that something tactical isn’t working.
She also sees families reaching out at key milestones: when young children arrive and costs balloon, and when people in their 40s and 50s are supporting aging parents and children while retirement draws closer.
Carroll thanked Veronica and her husband for their service.
Getting Started With Veronica
The first step is a free discovery call. Veronica asks:
What are your goals?
Where do you feel stuck?
Has something changed recently, or has this built up slowly to a breaking point?
Then she looks at the numbers, offers quick recommendations, and tells you honestly whether working together is the right fit. When someone needs a different first step, she points them there and invites them back afterward.
Her blog also offers practical, tactical advice for readers who are ready to act.
Talking About Money Takes Courage
Society is slowly becoming more open about money, Veronica says, helped by social media, YouTube and the push for financial literacy. Still, reaching out feels scary. The numbers are only part of it; the emotions run deep. Many people feel safer opening up to a trusted stranger than to someone in their own community.
Carroll, who once worked in mortgage lending and real estate, has seen how closely money and emotion are tied. A friend once told her that plenty of people drive fancy cars they can’t afford to fill with gas. Don’t judge a book by its cover, she reminded listeners. Surrender judgment of yourself and others, and get the help you need.
Bring back the piggy bank
Carroll loves the piggy bank on the book’s cover. Veronica noted a growing movement among parents to return to tangible money, so kids learn that money is real and something you part with in every transaction. Two of Carroll’s granddaughters have piggy banks, and they love them.
Be Brave and Ask for Help
To close, Veronica shared a gift: a line of opera, sung live. Carroll was thrilled.
Veronica’s parting words point to Stephen Covey’sThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which describes the journey from dependence to independence to interdependence. It took her a long time to learn that we don’t have to do this alone. We can learn from people who have already figured out the way, even when they live outside our own families.
Carroll summed it up: be brave, surrender what isn’t serving you, and be willing to ask for help.
Key takeaways
Many of our money beliefs come from unspoken family messages.
Start with the outcome you want, then reverse engineer the steps.
Track your progress against your plan.
Mindset comes first: awaken, reframe, intention, action.
Let go of resentments and beliefs that don’t move you forward.
Asking for help with money is an act of courage.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pay off student debt quickly?
Veronica started with the end goal, then reverse engineered the income and expense steps to reach it, and tracked her progress along the way. She paid off six figures of debt in three years on a starter salary.
What is Making Money Is Simple about?
It is Veronica’s story-based guide to money mindset, built on her four-step model: awaken, reframe, intention and action.
Who is financial coaching for?
Anyone who wants more clarity with money. Veronica works especially with military families, creatives, entrepreneurs, first-generation professionals, and people whose income has grown without real progress.
