Create The Best Me

Crush Debt & Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

• Carmen Hecox • Episode 122

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Are you tired of feeling shackled by student loans, credit card debt, or the endless cycle of living paycheck to paycheck? In this episode, I dive deep with U.S Army Veteran, financial coach, fintech manager, and opera singer Veronica Deraleau to reveal real-world strategies to crush debt and stop living paycheck to paycheck, no matter your starting point.

Veronica’s story is proof that massive change is possible. She paid off $100,000 in student loans on just one income in three years, without sacrificing the things she values most. In “Crush Debt & Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck,” Veronica shares the mindset shifts, budgeting secrets, and strategic trade-offs that helped her and her clients achieve true financial freedom. We explore why even millionaires skip the daily latte, what it means to align spending with your truest values, and how to spark honest conversations about money with your partner, even if you don’t see eye to eye.

If you’re ready to transform your relationship with money, this episode is packed with actionable insights for your next big leap. 

5 Key Lessons:

  1. Mindset Unlocks Your Money Breakthrough: Before budgets come, belief. Adopting a “yes, I can” approach is the starting point for debt freedom.
  2. Intentional Trade-offs Are Non-Negotiable: The wealthy master difficult choices for a reason. Learn how to spend in alignment with what matters most to you.
  3. Discipline ≠ Deprivation: Cutting back isn’t punishment; it’s a path to living your dreams instead of chasing someone else’s highlight reel.
  4. Tackling Debt Is a Team Sport: Honest, thoughtful conversations with your partner make shared goals achievable (even when you disagree).
  5. Action Breeds Confidence: Veronica’s ARIA model (Awaken, Reframe, Intention, Action) is your roadmap from doubt to done, no matter your income or background. 

Call to Action:

Share your financial wins or worries in the comments and subscribe for new weekly inspiration!

🔥 NEXT WEEK: Tune in for another fantastic episode crafted just for you! 

📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep122

https://makingmoneyissimple.com/

Purchase “Making Money Is Simple https://a.co/d/ezigaY3 

Follow and DM Veronica on Instagram, use code “BEST” for a free budget review. https://www.instagram.com/makingmoneyissimple/ 

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I've got a quick question to ask you. What would you do if you had a hundred thousand dollars in student loans? If you're thinking, cry, panic, well, today's guest, Veronica Deraleau, paid off exactly that much debt on a single income in just three years. Yes, three years. And today she's here to spill all her secrets on how she did it. Plus why even billionaires might skip Starbucks. Curious yet, stick around because by the end of this episode, your whole perspective on money might just flip upside down. Veronica Deraleau, welcome to Create the Best Me. This is an honor and a privilege to have you on the show. Thank you So much for having me, Carmen. So before we get into today's exciting conversation, can you please tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who you are and what you do? Absolutely. So, my name is Veronica Deraleau. I am a financial coach and I just published a book last year and started a financial coaching business. I am a manager at a FinTech company and also have a career as an opera singer. And I'm a US veteran as well. So, it's a little bit about me. Thank you very much for your service. Thank you. So, the reason I invited you onto the show is because you've done something that is incredibly impressive. You managed to pay your student loan, which was about a hundred thousand dollars on a single income in three years. I find that amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I say that because, you know, especially when you're young, you graduate from college, you're, trying to figure out where you're gonna go. I think that money is a hard discipline. And yet you manage to, I mean, my student loan was never a hundred grand and you managed to pay this big sucker off. How did you do that? Absolutely. So I think number one thing is that I had the will and the goal to do it. I think that some people don't even know that it's possible. It's not even within the realm of possibility to them. So they don't think to have the goal in the first place. When I graduated, so that was in 2017, I graduated with my MBA in 2017 with that debt. And being an artist, one of the things they tell you is that debt will hamper any goals of an artistic career that you have. So I really had it within me that I needed to get rid of this bad boy as soon as possible. And also my husband and I, Mike, we were wanting to combine our lives. We had been living, I was finishing up my MBA and he's originally from the Boston area and we were doing the long distance thing and we wanted to combine our lives and get married and buy a house. And I really felt quite ashamed that I had the step burden that was gonna prevent us potentially from being able to buy a home together. So I really was motivated to get rid of it. And, it was in 2017 that I started working for this commercial real estate company and really got to see a peek under the hood how high net worth individuals manage multimillion dollar deals. And, got to see under the hood about how to do strategic budgeting. So, it wasn't actually finishing school, that I was able to see how to do it. It was not until I got into the real world and saw how rich people manage money and how they do it fundamentally differently, than I did in my twenties. Just, you know, lower middle class upbringing. And number one was just that I had the will to do it and that I thought it was possible somehow. Maybe that was naive, but I figured out I wanted to do it. And so it was just a matter of making it happen. And then I had this unique experience of seeing these high net worth individuals manage these multimillion dollar property budgets. Yeah. And I think that's impressive because one, you were so young and you were able to discipline yourself. And two, a lot of times we, I mean, I'm, taking my own experience. We have a loan, you know, cause like when I finished up my dual bachelor's degrees, I have like $26,000 in student loans. And I think they said it needed to be paid off within 20 years. And I thought, I don't wanna carry this sucker for 20 years. I did manage to pay it off in like five years, but that was $26,000. And you know, but I remember my peers, they'd say, oh, well I'll pay it off in 20 years. I'll just ride the puppy till, you know, 20 years. I'm pretty sure that when you graduated with your MBA, you had like a 20 year loan or whatever the time period was, and you could have taken that approach and said, oh, well I'm gonna pay it off in 20 years. So I find that very impressive that, like I said, you were young, you disciplined yourself that I'm not carrying this a hundred thousand dollars loan for X period of time. Yeah. Thank you so much, I really appreciate that. I think that it was just such a mental burden on me. Another thing is, some of those loans were from my undergrad and they were co-signed by my mother. So I was like super motivated to get rid of them cause I was like, I don't want that on her books. I don't want that keeping me down from progressing forward in life. And, and yeah, sometimes people really do just, immediately get resigned to, I, guess I'm just gonna live with this forever, because they don't know that it's actually possible to even pay it off quicker than 20, 25 years. Some clients I've been talking to, like one that I can think of is a doctor. These doctors man, they have medical school debt that is more than a mortgage sometimes. And, you know, sometimes when you're like, actually you have a good income, I think you can pay it faster than the 40 year timeline they give you. Um, some people they don't even know it's possible. So I guess I was lucky that I just went in thinking that it was possible. And then once you decide that you're gonna do something and then it's just a matter of figuring out the numbers. But first you have to have the idea that you can even do it. I, think you have the idea that you can do it, but then I think it takes a lot of discipline because, hmm. You know, you look at maybe your siblings or your friends and they're driving nice cars or they're wearing nice clothing and they're living this life that, at least in my personal opinion, I don't know; I knew that when I said that I was gonna pay down my student loan quickly, I knew that there was a lot of things that I could not do in order to achieve paying this goal off. And so it's hard, to, be poor and pretty much. I gotcha. Yeah, that, that makes total sense. In my book called Making Money is Simple, and it's, the subtitle is Stop Going From Paycheck to Paycheck and Start Living Your Dreams, I cover my ARIA money model, which is a four step model. And the first step is Awaken, or, it's an awareness step that you, maybe you have a problem or maybe you have a goal, an ambitious goal that you're trying to do with your money or your life, frankly. The second step is Reframe. And so I think that hits on what you are talking about, which is, I teach intentional trade-offs. And that became so clear to me when I was working on these multimillion dollar budgets that if you are, the people who are very successful with money are always making very difficult decisions about trade-offs. And like, one thing that I thought was super interesting exercise is we would have, we would come together as a team and we would work on these budgets together. And we would align the incentives to the budgets. So if you hit the budget, you would get a positive outcome as far as a bonus; but you had to hit the budget. So you had to have a goal that was profitable or positive cashflow, right. And it, it had to be achievable. So I do talk a lot about SMART goals as well. These time bound goals. I think that is also another thing that can make or break someone's discipline is understanding that their behaviors will actually lead to a positive outcome. And not feel that helplessness, that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, whatever I sacrifice, it's not getting me anywhere. I think that if you have that time bound goal and you have a realistic way to get there, and then you're actually taking the steps to achieve the progress. In a way that is sustainable or, you know, in, I kind of went a little crazy with my budget just because I wanted to go faster. But when you have that end in mind and it's actually achievable, then, I think the friction of, I wanna live this way that kind of dissolves. Because, you know it's temporary when it's time bound. So that, that's a little bit of what I teach is like understanding intentional trade-offs, understanding the time horizon, and making smart goals and understanding, okay, if I, if I tweak this lever, this is gonna go up, or I'll achieve the goal in a shorter or longer timeframe. And then giving the person empowerment to make those decisions you know, whatever they value and whatever they wanna spend, their money is legitimate. But we have finite resources, and so how we choose to pull those levers with whether it be I'm gonna work more and increase my income, or I'm going to cut more and decrease my expenses, or I'm gonna shorten or, uh, lengthen the time horizon that I achieve a particular goal in order to prioritize something else, those are all valid. But the tools that people have at their disposal. So I think once I just like intimately understood those, those intentional trade offs because I saw it happen in budgets and I saw people having to make decisions. Um, and then also when I saw like, okay, actually I can achieve this in this timeframe and I just have to cut this for a short period of time, you become so motivated to do it. But I think that you have to give people hope. And that hope I think, is tied to that time bound. And also the fact that they can actually influence their own outcomes. You know, and it's so funny that you say that, cause I've heard that like some of these, big millionaires or billionaire people, that they don't spend money like we do. They may not go out to Starbucks and buy coffee, like we do because they look at, well, you know, $6 or $7, whatever that costs, that's a lot of money. And it's funny because they're millionaires or billionaires and they think that's a lot of money. But you know, we don't even think about that, we're just like, oh, well, it's 6, $7. Right, right. It's, it's fascinating, the mindset and it's, it, the crazy thing is once you see something, that way you can't unsee it. They have a long-term mindset. They have the, okay, we're gonna plan 5, 7, 10 years out, I want this outcome. I wanna be here in 10 years. And then they just reverse engineer it and back into the numbers, and then they just, have the plan set and they stick to it. And evaluate whether real life is going according to the plan, monthly. So they have a longer term time horizon. And then also, once you understand the intentional trade-offs and you understand, assets versus liabilities. I have a client right now who's like addicted to her savings account because she's like, oh my gosh, you're telling me I'm putting it I'm, this is the first time she's even had the high yield savings account. So she's like, oh my gosh, I keep putting money in there and they keep giving me interest. Why are they giving me this money? So I think once you understand like; okay, I could just buy this fleeting thing that I could make at home if I just waited five minutes and I could buy a coffee maker one time, and I can make coffee probably better quality than what I can get down the street that they're charging me mostly for the plastic. Once you start understanding the trade offs of like, I am spending my hard earned money with my life time, and I'm trading it for this fleeting thing that I could make at home, and I'm not even purchasing an asset that will generate me long-term wealth. Like once you've put those things together, it's hard to unsee it. So it gives you like a different perspective. You start to see, okay, if I'm going to put my money in this basket, what's the basket going to give me? Other than just pleasure, it's, it needs to give me something. And, you know, the pleasure is, is totally valid. But, you know, there's what I call money triggers in my book. It's like the subconscious things that pull at you. That, may be depleting your money from your account that you are even unaware of. So sometimes that can be very difficult when you pull your transactions down and you study it for the first time and you're like, what am I gonna find here? Am I spending way too much on clothing or purses or cars or whatever it may be? Is that actually what I intended to spend it on in the first place? Like is it going according to what I say my values are and the way that I actually wanna live my life? And then, you know, there's the sort of like fleeting pleasure and then the long-term, like maybe things that are not so glorious in the moment, but then when you look back, they give you a lot of joy. Let's say you achieve a huge milestone, like you purchase a home or you, have a family. Those things, you know, the day-to-day can be difficult, like hard, but there are things that you look back on and, they're amazing. So is it just gonna give you like a dopamine hit for five minutes and then you forgot that you even purchased it? Or is it going to really give you pleasure in, you know, when you think back on it? So whether that be prioritizing experiences or prioritizing spending your money with family or whatever it may be. But wherever it is going, is it what you actually intended for your money? Mm-hmm. Because I know that I always, I'll be really honest with you, I fear money. Mm I fear money. I was a single mom for 21 years. I raised two children all by myself, put myself through college, purchased this home all by myself. And so spending money is very hard for me to do because I always have this fear that what if that's it? What if there is no more? Do you ever have clients like this? Yeah, so you have the, you have the opposite. You have trouble spending your money. Absolutely, I have clients like that. I think sometimes I think Why are they hitting me, up? And then I'm like, okay, I think they have the opposite issue where now they are successful and they need help aligning, you know, the spending to, what is gonna give them that long-term joy? So yes, I do have clients like that as well, that I'm like, I think you have the opposite problem. And now you know what, this is very relatable to me right now. When you grow up in scarcity, it is very difficult, and I did have a girlfriend like kinda, you know, shake me at one point like, hey, like the skills that got you, the discipline, the hardcore discipline that got you to paying off the a hundred grand, those might not be the same skills that you need going forward, and like maybe you can say goodbye to that version of you and like have a different growth oriented Veronica. And it's something that I've dealt with. My husband actually, he's so, like, one of the reasons that we got together, we have extremely, you know, we're aligned on our value system and he's so frugal, like way more frugal than me even. And it's been, it was really hard to to be like, babe, like I'm trying to grow something here. I have seen how wealthy people navigate the world and actually they get to a point where they're thinking bigger and they're thinking, wealth creation, and they are thinking, how can I best deploy my money? And I think we're at that point now, that we've, you know, gotten through all the debt. I think we can like start to build something here and dream a little bit bigger. And, you know, sometimes it takes money to make money, like, you know, strategically placing your money to purchase assets or whatever. But it can be super scary to let go if you think that the dollars are finite. And it, it can be difficult to get out of that mindset, that scarcity mindset and switch over. You can't just cut over to the abundance mindset right away. It's true. Yeah, cause I remember when I was in the office, this is many years ago when I was working in corporate, and we would talk about our retirement plans and people would say, oh, you know Carmen, how do you have your portfolio invested? And I would tell them, oh, believe it or not, Veronica, you're gonna fall outta your chair. The majority of my, because this, and I did this during 9 - 11. When 9 - 11 hit, a lot of people lost money. I moved a lot of my retirements into bonds, and by doing that, you know, it's very secure. But I kept it in bonds for, I don't know years. And so I told them, I says, oh, it's in bonds. And they're like, you're young. This was like, I don't know, I think I had this conversation, I think it was like 10, 15 years ago, and they're like, you're young. You're supposed to be aggressive. You know, because you can gamble. The people that I was talking to, they were like in their, almost close to retirement. And they were like, you know where we are at right now, we're doing a little bit more of a mixed type of stuff because we wanna be a little bit aggressive, but we still wanna have a lot of conservative options. Because we're close to the end where we're going to retire. They're like, Carmen, you need to get your stuff out of bonds and you need to diversify your stuff because you've lost so much money because you did that. And I said, yeah, but I did it because 9 - 11 happened. And everybody lost so much money, but I didn't because I, you know, I happened to move it into bonds before it happened. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that, you know, looking back, you can be brilliant, right? But one, I wanna say kudos to you for, you know, doing it, being a single mother, being able to save, being able to buy a home. Those are amazing things. So congratulations on all of that, starting this venture. So wanna celebrate that for sure. Keeping your money in a conservative bonds is not like the worst thing. Yes, there's upside that will be lost. So there are ways to make sure, you know, for my people who are pretty conservative or more risk averse, you can have, you know, a huge emergency fund to make you feel better. You can be more conservative with the ratios, but there is, you know, in economics there's what's called opportunity cost, which is the loss, the lost money on the upside. So that's what they were referring to. But it's not the worst thing in the world, it's just opportunity cost. And if you're young, then it is mathematically true that, you can be more aggressive. But you can still, for the risk averse types, you can, have very robust emergency funds too, be more secure and, take sort of that scarcity mindset. I being a singer and creative on the side, having that separate career, I always have been more on the conservative side. I think also my upbringing. So, I am one of those that can relate to that situation and would want to have, you know, they have the options of like 3, 6, 12, some people even have two years worth of expenses. If you are the type that is, gets really scared, I would just have a huge emergency fund. And then the rest, anything on top of that, then you can feel better that you can be on the more aggressive side with the investing. Depending on how close to retirement you are. But yeah, for those risk averse people, I would say, satiate that need, cause I think it's a need and I think it's very difficult to invest comfortably if your feeling of security is not met. And then also if you have debt, you know, that's sort of like counteracting you're investing those two things. But in that order, you know having the robust emergency fund based on your needs, you know, single mother, scared of the, you know, a huge catastrophic loss, satiate that need, you know, have the big emergency fund, make sure you don't have any debt, and then on top of that, you should be like more mentally prepared to take more risk on the investing. Mm-hmm. And then get this, had no debt. The only debt I had was the house. And they're like, okay, Carmen, you have no dept your car is paid off. You have no debt. You're the only thing you're paying is the house and then insurance, and you know, you have everything in bonds. I mean, immediately I did diversify my retirement account because they opened my eyes, Mm-hmm. but I've always been the kind of person that if I can't pay cash, then I can't afford it. I mean, that's always been my mindset. Think we've gotten away with that. We've gotten away from that as a society, and I think that was an error. So, again, like kudos to you because, honestly, that's a good problem to have, right? It is. So, so yeah, a lot of people would, would love to be in that, in that scenario. And so I'm glad that you, did the diversification outta the bonds. That is another way to, to lessen risk, is, to diversify. So glad you did that. And, yeah, so that's not the worst problem in the world. But the, but there is a problem. The problem is, is that, I've always, because then I did get married and I've always told my husband, if I'm gonna spend money on something, it better make me money. Hmm. But I didn't do it because I was scared. Oh, well, investing, no? No, I didn't invest because I was scared. And so that's how come, I said it was, having that mindset is good; If you can't pay cash, you can't afford it. And you know, and having that money, scarcity, you know, those are all good things, but I wasn't practicing what I was preaching. And so I wasn't investing other than you know, my retirement account. Because I do know that there are other things that you can do out there to help give you a life that is liberating. Mm-hmm. Well, okay, so let's be clear, you were investing, you had bonds, you were putting money in a retirement account, so you were investing and you were putting money in assets that way. You're just, what you're saying now is sort of like the, the more upside kind of investing, like alternative investing? Is that what I'm That's I'm saying. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. How are your feelings on that now? Do you want me to be honest with you? Yeah, I'm still the same. Yeah. Okay. Well, My husband, my husband spends money, it like gets me so nervous, but I try to just keep it, you know, keep it to myself. And that is totally within his discretionary spending. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I sometimes my husband has to be, has to be like, it is okay for you to spend money because you wanna do something. So, so even I need a reminder from time to time. I think we all need a reminder time to time. It's super difficult to break behaviors that we're ingrained from us in childhood and maybe, maybe burned us along the way. So we all have to give ourselves a little bit of grace. I think, I don't know about you, but maybe, what would be helpful, like for my husband, he can be pretty emotional on the scarcity side as well. What's helped me in, in conversations with him, if I have an idea, is to be more logical. I don't know if, if you have like a tendency to need more of the, like what's the business plan then is that, do you know if you have like one tendency or another if you find yourself being stuck in the scarcity mindset? Does having like a business plan shown to you, would that counteract that? I think for me it's just like, what am I gonna get in return? Mm-hmm. You know, what am I gonna get in return? Like I gave the example of the basket, you know, if I buy this basket, what's this basket going to do? Is it going to help me earn income? Or you know, and give me pleasure, or is this just going to make me look like I have a pretty basket? Mm. Mm-hmm. If that makes sense. Yeah. And also I think sometimes like in society, there can be all these like, I don't know, finance, finance bros that like are like, I wanna be a billionaire. Like I have like no aspiration to be a billionaire. Sometimes I think, you know, once my debt was paid off and like we have our basics covered, I wanna be an artist and I wanna help people like, these are my two goals in life. I feel like if you are aligned and happy at what you're doing, sometimes you don't, like if you're all set and your needs are covered and your values are covered, you, what's the point like making more money for the sake of more money? Sometimes I think that it's sort of just not necessary if it's just filling headspace, for you that you're like, this is not needed. I don't think there's anything wrong with that either. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, I have, and people are probably gonna say, really, I have no desire to drive fancy cars. I have no desire to have fancy purses or, you know, or, or have what other people have. I don't know if that makes sense. I have no desire for those things. I'm happy with, the things I have. And I know that there are a lot of that, you know, there are a lot of other people that say you're crazy. Of course I want a Louis Vuitton bag and yes, I wanna drive the Mercedes or whatever. Those things are not important to me. You just seem to me, you seem very in tune with your values. So I don't think any of this is problematic. But if you want to, if you think that there's like a fear that's holding you back, happy to chat through that offline, but to me it just sort of seems like you're, you're good. So. So let's talk about some of the people that are listening or watching right now, if they, you know, because here's the other thing is that financial, differences, you know, between husband and wife or partners creates conflict. And so I know that having financial freedom creates happiness, you know, creates that, that liberating feeling. If the people that are watching or listening right now happen to be imbalanced, how can they work through, get on the same mindset that, hey, you know what, we wanna pay off this debt by this time because we wanna retire. We want to travel the world. That comes down to difficult conversations. I think that is one of the toughest things that I see is when one partner wants to fix their finances and maybe the other one is just like not aligned. Or they don't want the help. Or they're not on the same page. And so what can you do about it, right? Because we wanna offer some hope. I think that understanding your spouse and how to approach things, like how do you approach them in conflict for them to not be reactive. Some there's like the cognitive versus the emotional approaches. So you kind of have to know how your partner operates a little bit. My partner needs space and he needs logic. So he can be, like I said, he was very frugal and we've worked on the abundance mindset and uh, the growth opportunities. He's very good at the frugal side, but I had to kind of, I was, you know, working with these high net worth individuals and I'd be like, I don't know I see them like buying property and I kind of wanna do this and like, I kind of wanna start this business and it's gonna look like this, it's gonna be kind of lopsided. I'm gonna put a lot of effort in the front end, but I think there's a lot of upside. So it can be tough if someone doesn't understand, like what you see for the future. And it's never been on their radar, you know. So I think understanding how to approach them in a thoughtful way. Like, okay, what will they be receptive to? Are they more of the logical kind, and they kind of need some space to sit on that? Or is it an emotional play? Like, here's what I want for us. Here's the life that I envision. I want us, our family to be free with our time, and I want to provide for the legacy of our children. You know, so sometimes I've, spoken with, you know, the partners a man, and then not to be like, overly stereotypical, but, if the woman is more about, the children, you know, like, oh, okay, I wanna figure this out because I want our children to be in it. If that's like, you kinda have to figure out what their buttons are, that they'll be receptive to a conversation about that, and kind of approach it that way. Yeah, cause I know that sometimes people spend money out of emotions. And so you might get them on the same playing field where, okay, this is the goal that we're on this team, this is what we're gonna do, this is how we're gonna do it. And then somebody has an emotional thing that happens at work or family or something, and then they go out and they spend money. Because that's how some people, pacify that emotion. You know, some of us eat, some of us drink, some of us spend money, That's right. And then it throws the whole goal out of, out of alignment. Yeah, so I, I think the, you have to have a budget. So I never say that any spending is bad. I think all of these goals I have, such a variety of conversations because like my artist type, colleagues and, and clients, they don't care about having material things, they just want the lifestyle that they can continue to pursue their passions. And then, you know, there's other sides, the total financial optimizers that won't spend any. So there's, all types of lifestyles that people wanna have. I think all of those are valid. I think it's just a matter of understanding when you can attain something. So I don't think that any of these things, if they wanna spend their money on you know, these purchases, I don't think that they're not valid. It's just a matter of do I have this money right now? Do I have to wait till next paycheck? Like sometimes that's literally those are the conversations that I have with people. Like, hey, if you go on vacation, like maybe next month, don't spend anything. You know, cause the money's gotta come from somewhere and you can have a fabulous vacation, but then maybe kind of detox from spending money for the next quarter or so. So as long as it's intentional, you wanna unwind the emotions from the spending. It's totally fine to have the expenditure, but it's just a matter of, you know, stopping the cycle of like being negative and then paying off the debt and then being negative, and then paying off the debt. It's like, let's, detox for a little bit so we can get to a really nice cash position where we're positive and we're actually just spending money that we actually have in our bank account. We're not constantly going back and reverting back into the debt cycle. We'll never get ahead that way. But yeah, it's just sort of like retraining the mind to delay that delayed gratification, um, so that we're actually spending money that we have rather than going into debt. Because we can't wait two paychecks to spend money. And so how do you, like, let's say people have like different credit card debt. You know, they have the different credit card debt, let's say they say, here's my credit card debt. Here's my house, here's the cars. When you start working with them through this entire mountain of debt, how do you figure out which mountain they're gonna hit first or which little hill they're gonna hit to be able to knock down that mountain sum? I really like the snowball method because it just gives people momentum, and that is paying off from smallest balance to largest balance. For me personally speaking, I did a, a hybrid, sort of a hybrid method. One, I was like, I gotta get rid of the credit card debt cause that is just so beyond the rest of them. So I did the avalanche method, which is, highest interest rate to lowest on the credit cards only. And then I did snowball for the rest because it was, the student loans were just, it was such a massive amount that I, I really needed the, like, emotional momentum of quick wins and, and then having that extra cash freed up to pay the next thing. I think if you were to pick one snowball's the way to go because you really just need the sustained momentum. And it's just helpful from an emotional standpoint to see progress. And see like, okay, I am putting this plan in place and it actually is working. And now I'm like, okay, you know, once you get some positive reinforcement, some positive feedback, then you're like, okay, I wanna keep going. So, snowball method for me is the way. Yeah, because then you can actually see, like if you have 10 credit cards and you know, next month now you have nine credit cards, you're like, oh, I did something. I accomplished something. And then two months later it's eight. And so it just gives you that warm feeling that I'm hitting this. Mm-hmm. Yep. And I think that's what, you know, gives people hope when they've kind of been hopeless for a while, is what can we achieve quickly? So, you know, if we can free up some cash, whether it be like sell things that may be just sitting around the house collecting dust. Or if we can do some side hustles to increase the, the rate and the speed at which we can pay the things off. I think sometimes going fast for me is, is very helpful cause I think it gives people hope. Yeah. And it's funny that you mentioned that, cause the other day I went to go get the mail and my neighbor was getting like a DoorDash and I told my husband, I said, you should have seen the girl that dropped off the grocery or dropped off the food over at my neighbor's. I said, she looked, I said she was dressed up really nice. It looked like she had just come home from, you know, was coming home from the office and maybe picked up a couple of DoorDash deals to make some extra money on her way home. And my husband says, why, why do you say that? And I said, because she was dressed nice. I said, she was a young girl and she had like office attire. I said, I saw her shoes, they look like office shoes. I said, I can't imagine somebody, dressed like that to just do DoorDash. Yeah, that makes, I love that story. Yeah, that's, that person is hustling for sure. Yeah, and I just thought, you know what, she probably is, you know, she's got this goal or maybe she wants to go on a trip or something, and she's trying to make that extra cash to be able to accomplish that. Yeah, I, I know there's so many things this day and age that you can do like that, whether it be, you know, Uber or DoorDash. Or like something creative like Fiverr or teaching lessons, if you have a talent. Or you know, you can be very creative with it. But I've been super impressed with those platforms or even sharing, you know, assets that may, you may have, I don't know, depending on what city you're in, it could be, it could be pretty good, pretty profitable. So tell me, have you ever had a student that did what you did? Or not student, a client. A client, yeah. I have a client right now, she in five months, paid off 25 grand. In five months. And, and she is owning, an asset for the first time. I'm so proud of her. Yeah. She was like, I don't, she was like, this was not even, I didn't even know this was in the realm of possibility. So it is very fulfilling when someone just trusts the process. And also they're just like, I didn't even know this was possible. It's like my eyes were opened to some new paradigm. And you know, we're really like, we're gonna change the trajectory of her life. It's, it's really incredible. Veronica, how does she do that? I mean, she was, you know, walking through life before you, and then all of a sudden she meets you and knocks down this $25,000 debt. Yeah, that one was truly, someone who in her twenties, she was broke pretty much. And then she just finished this, this residency, so she's a doctor now. And she was like, I have this income, and I speak to a kind of a lot of professionals like this where they've been able to increase their income, it does not necessarily mean that they're able to make any progress with their debt or sometimes their lifestyles just increased, you know, to match their income. That happens frequently. So some still live paycheck to paycheck. It's, it's crazy cause people always think, oh, If I just make more money, it's like, that is not true at all. It's, it's amazing how quickly people will increase their lifestyle to match whatever income they have. So it really was just showing her, I talk about strategic budgeting. What I saw in my experience at that commercial real estate firm, that opened my eyes like, actually there's another way to do it. Because those doctors, the trajectory she was on, it would've been like 40 years she was paying those loans off the way they set them up. It's unbelievable. It's like a crime. And I was like, nope, there's another way and I will show you. And she was like, what? Like I didn't even, I, I had no idea, like total paradigm shift. I didn't even know I could do this. So, I think at her core, she's a very, like, she's, she's like you, she's like more on the conservative side. It was just a matter of the knowledge. And another thing is she had to mentally prepare, like being broke most of her twenties, she was definitely coming from that scarcity mindset and like fear, like huge amount of fear. A lot of people, a lot of professionals that I talk to, if they're coming to me, they're in fear, they're in shame, they're in anxiety probably for a while, and they might have increased obligations. It gets very tough when you are like caring for elderly parents, or you have young children, or you're trying to put kids through college. But then it becomes even more imperative to understand, where's my money going? I might have a good income, but it's not going anywhere to where I want it to go. And where is it going? You know, like what changes need to be made so that I can make what I actually want to make happen, happen. And when she was like, I actually don't care for all of these things. What I want, number one is security. I'm like, we can do that. You have a great income. It's just a matter of applying it to where you're saying that you actually want it to go. And then once I showed her the, you know, the tactical stuff, she was like, I can't believe that this, how come they don't teach this in the world? I'm like, I don't know. It's like a big conspiracy or something. If they tell you, if they taught you, they'd have to kill you. Yeah, it's because they wanna keep us in this like debt cycle. They want us, you know, that's how the the macro economy works is people, I don't wanna say preying on, but kind of keeping people in this paycheck to paycheck cycle where the economy's fueled by financing things, not by actually having money and then paying it. It's, it's like, oh, what payment can you make? It's not, can you afford the thing? It's not that it's can you afford the payment with the interest? Someone else is earning the interest. I wanna own the interest. I wanna earn the interest. So yeah, I think once you're able to see the game that's afoot and you're like, actually someone's making money off of me, and I'm about to flip the script here. I don't wanna keep being in this poverty cycle where I'm paying someone else's interest. I am paying someone else's mortgage. I think I wanna own some assets. Hmm. That's a beautiful lesson. I love that story. I bet that doctor has referred several of her doctor friends to you, because I'm pretty sure they're in the same hole. Oh my gosh. Yeah, send all the doctors to me. I, I wanna help because there's another way for sure. It's not, it's certainly not the 40 year scam that they put you on. Yeah. Veronica, based on the conversation that we have had here today, what are three things that, you want the listener or the viewer to hold close to their heart and know that it can happen. Oh my gosh, okay. So number one, you just have to decide that you want to do something. Once you have that burning passion, there's nothing that you can't do. It's so really what gets mostly in our way is our own mind. And then once we contain that and get past that, then nothing can stop us. So that's number one. I think also be courageous, cause I think a lot of what stops people on the financial front is that they don't even take the first step of looking under the hood and under understanding that, hey, I think there's a problem here. And the first step, that awareness step is very courageous. So take that first step. I'll go through the full ARIA model. So A for Awaken, R for Reframe, we talked about. Third is I for Intention. So what are you trying to achieve? Like take a step back. We all get caught up in the day to day. It's imperative that we get focused on what are we trying to achieve over the course of our lifetime? What are our values? What do we wanna say that we achieved at the end? And get that in motion. And then A is for Action. So take action, you know, with money time is literally of the essence because that's just the way that numbers work with interest and compounding and all of that stuff. So the best time to start is today. So that's what I'll say. And based upon the conversation we've had today, is most of this in your book? Yeah, so the ARIA Money method, that's in my book, that's the framework along with stories. So very quick, easy, relatable read. That should be a quick read. That is the mindset stuff. And then if you want the tactical stuff, you can reach out to me at my website, making Money is simple.com. And you can also follow me on Instagram at Making Money Is Simple and my book is available on Amazon. That's beautiful. I love it. I absolutely love it. I love it because you're right, start now. Start now and you'll reap the benefits of starting now. Amen. Yeah. Veronica, thank you so much for coming on the show. I will include all of your information in the show notes so that people can, one, get your book so they can, you know, get a good taste. And then two contact you to begin working with you so they can begin to live a liberating life that they deserve. I love that. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Carmen. I don't know about you, but after this conversation, I'm inspired to rethink everything I thought I knew about money. Huge thanks to Veronica for joining us and sharing such powerful insights. And remember whether it's knocking down a student loan, saving smarter or simply feeling free with your finances, making money truly can be simple. If you wanna dive deeper and get Veronica's practical tips, grab a copy of her book, Making Money is Simple. The link is below in the show notes. And if you'd like to connect with Veronica or learn more, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep122. And don't forget to join us next week for another amazing episode, crafted just for you. Until then, keep dreaming big. Take care of yourself, and remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.