MONEY IS A TOOL: HOW TO STOP LETTING FINANCIAL HABITS SHAPE YOUR LIFE

What if some of the financial decisions shaping your life aren't really decisions anymore, but habits you've stopped noticing?

Sometimes creating more freedom begins with making those invisible choices visible again.

SIGNATURE QUOTE

“Money's a tool and so you don't wanna just sit with it, like what do you want to do with it?”

WHY THIS QUOTE MATTERS

This question captures the heart of the conversation because financial freedom isn't simply about accumulating more. It's about becoming intentional about what your money allows you to build, experience and contribute.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Money may look like numbers on a spreadsheet, but our relationship with it is often shaped by something much deeper: our beliefs, experiences, emotions and the stories we've carried with us for years.

Financial coach and author Veronica Deraleau joins Audley Stephenson for a thoughtful conversation about breaking those patterns and becoming more intentional about the trade-offs we make with our money, time and energy. Drawing from her own journey of paying off six figures of debt, Veronica explains how changing the way she thought about money changed what she believed was possible.

This conversation goes beyond budgeting. It's about recognizing the choices happening by default, questioning the beliefs underneath them and deciding what you actually want your resources to make possible.

Because money is a tool. The bigger question is what you want to do with it.

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF...

• You want greater financial freedom but feel stuck in familiar habits

• You're carrying money beliefs shaped by your past

• You want to become more intentional about where your money, time and energy go

• You're navigating a life or career transition and reconsidering what matters

• You're ready to stop letting default choices quietly determine your future

GUEST BIO

Veronica Deraleau is a financial coach and author whose approach to money was shaped by an unconventional journey spanning music, the military, commercial real estate and financial technology.

After graduating with six figures of debt, Veronica began applying lessons she learned from the way high-net-worth individuals approached money and long-term outcomes. She paid off her debt in three years and eventually began helping others rethink their own financial habits, beliefs and possibilities.

Her book, Making Money Is Simple: Stop Going from Paycheck to Paycheck and Start Living Your Dreams, explores many of those lessons through stories from her own life. At the centre of her work is a simple idea: money becomes far more powerful when we intentionally decide what we want it to help us accomplish.

GUEST LINKS

Website:

makingmoneyissimple.com

Book:

Making Money Is Simple: Stop Going from Paycheck to Paycheck and Start Living Your Dreams

Available through Amazon and MakingMoneyIsSimple.com

Social:

@makingmoneyissimple

LISTEN ON MAJOR PLATFORMS

🎧 Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2jVR6V7X2kRiCCDXE0FTyl?si=IR3TsfEWR3WA6BzfBRnVXQ

🍎 Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-audacious-living-podcast/id1547447345

📦 Amazon Music → https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/9f7902bb-dec8-4bd9-918d-d1fef21b7c67/the-audacious-living-podcast?ref=dm_sh_pGv57yQvAmAQVp2IIaXoDwtFt

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