In a city as notoriously expensive as New York, it’s common to see people in their late 20s and early 30s living with roommates to help manage the high cost of living.

But Ishan Abeysekera has taken that to the next level with his current living situation in Brooklyn: a communal building that he shares with a whopping 23 other people.

“When I say I have 23 housemates, people are like ‘What? That sounds wild,’” Abeysekera tells CNBC Make It. “But actually, it’s quite nice.”

The 33-year-old engineer lives in a space operated by Cohabs, a company that offers fully furnished bedrooms and communal living spaces for stays as short as 6 months or as long as a year or more. In addition to locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Cohabs has properties scattered across European cities including Madrid, Paris, London and Milan.

Abeysekera actually didn’t set out to have so many roommates — or any roommates at all. When he first moved to New York City from London in late 2022 for work, his job put him up in a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s Financial District.

When he set out to find his own apartment, he looked all over the city for a one-bedroom that would fit into his monthly rent budget of $2,000 to $3,000. On a whim, he looked up communal living in Brooklyn and came across Cohabs.

When he went to tour the available room in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he was immediately sold seeing some of the residents having dinner together in the dining area.

“How do you really meet people when you’re new to a city? This seemed like a great way to do that,” he says.

As a result, Abeysekera put pen to paper and moved in. He currently pays $2,100 a month for his room. His monthly payment also covers WiFi, utilities, household supplies, a weekly cleaning service and monthly communal breakfast.

He initially had a smaller room for which he paid $1,850 per month — along with $1,850 due up front for his security deposit — but upgraded to his current space when the larger room became available.

The four-floor, 24-bedroom building’s tenants range in age from 21 to 36. Each person has their own locker in the communal living area, and the six refrigerators have enough space for each tenant to have their own shelf for their groceries.

“Sharing a kitchen with so many people is completely fine,” he says. “You have your own cupboard to leave your stuff in.”

The building is complete with coworking spaces, an outdoor patio and a finished basement with a massive couch that can fit all the residents at once. There’s even some gym equipment and number of ongoing building-wide exercise challenges.

“There’s so much shared amenities and space that you’re never really in each other’s way,” Abeysekera says. “And everyone has their own space in terms of their own room.”

Still, he admits that his current setup has “a lot of similarities” to living in a college dorm. But, he says, there’s one key difference: “Everyone’s a lot more respectful because they’re more of an adult and more mature.”

And just like some people you dorm with in college become friends for life, Abeysekera says he’s formed strong relationships with people he has met through Cohabs.

“Being here has really helped me build a community and make friends,” he says. “It’s really enriched my life.”

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.

When Leena Pettigrew tells friends she earns over $100,000 per year selling plants online, they usually think she means cannabis.

In reality, the full-time IT analyst spends 20 hours per week sourcing, growing, packaging and selling houseplants from variegated micans and Anthurium luxurians to Philodendron Ring of Fires in her Houston garage.

With almost no prior gardening experience, Pettigrew started buying plants to redecorate her house in 2022, she says. When her office, bedroom and living room became “overrun” with eight-foot-tall Monstera plants, she looked for ways to sell them.

Her search led her to Palmstreet, an online marketplace for plants, crystals and home decor. She joined the platform in June 2023, and brought in nearly $148,600 of revenue in one year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

The 44-year-old is also a paid consultant on the platform now, and helps train new sellers, she says.

DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to earning passive income online

Most of her sales come from livestream sessions. Twice per week, Pettigrew auctions off plants — purchased from local nurseries or other online vendors — for four hours, or more, at a time on Palmstreet. Sometimes, she’s joined by her husband Marquise. They sell roughly 100 plants each stream, all of which ship nationwide, she says.

“When I first started, I was extremely anxious on camera and felt like I had to do a lot of preparation to be successful,” says Pettigrew, adding: “I still get nervous and sometimes take a shot of bourbon beforehand.”

Yet her business is profitable and earns enough for her husband to significantly cut his working hours at an automotive shop they co-own, she says. Marquise and five contract employees now help Pettigrew with customer service, marketing and shipping.

Here, Pettigrew discusses how she honed her side hustle, the pros and cons of turning her hobby into a business, and how other people can replicate her success.

CNBC Make It: Do you think your side hustle is replicable? How much does it cost to get started?

Pettigrew: I think almost anyone can do it — but not everyone.

Palmstreet is competitive. It costs about $1,000 to build enough of an inventory for the platform to accept your application. There’s a commitment that goes into this, whether it’s selling on livestreams, taking care of your plants or posting on social media.

You have to stand out. Good customer service and having unique plants can help, but I think personality makes the biggest difference. If you want people to watch your livestreams, you have to have enthusiasm and joy for what you do, and be yourself.

Does that level of enthusiasm and joy come naturally to you?

I’m very introverted and shy. When I first started, my husband had to come out on livestreams with me so I’d feel more comfortable. We’re both silly, so he helps me goof around, have fun and not take myself so seriously, which I think helps us connect to customers.

I also have to have a little downtime after livestreams. Otherwise, I’m irritable.

You and your husband co-own an auto shop, and your husband still spends about six hours per week running it. What’s the biggest difference between that and selling plants online?

Selling plants is a lot less stressful.

In the auto shop, customers relied on us to get to work. Sometimes, having their car break down, and having to pay for it, was the worst day of their lives. Our workers relied on us for their household incomes, too, and it was hot and dirty.

When we sell plants, people are spending their disposable income on things they want. Our contract workers are part-time, and while there’s still some dirt involved, it’s at least more concentrated.

Have you experienced any downsides to turning your hobby into a business?

The side hustle, and my husband and I’s remote jobs, are all out of our house. That can make it hard to stop working.

Sometimes, we feel like we don’t have time for our spiritual needs. So, we’ve started taking weekend trips, even just around Texas, to physically get out of the house, get away from work and connect with each other.

Once you own your own business, you can’t turn it off. There’s always something more to do.

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With the peak summer travel season winding down, it’s time for National Cheap Flight Day.

But don’t let the misleading name fool you into rushing to book your next trip.

“There’s no specific day where flights are going to be at their cheapest,” Katy Nastro, a travel expert at Going, tells CNBC Make. “That’s just not the case.” 

Instead, Nastro says that the best time to book air travel will always be in relation to when you’re planning on flying. This period when the best rates tend to be found is called the Goldilocks window. 

It gets its name because it’s not too far away from your travel date, but it’s also not too close. For domestic travel the Goldilocks window is between one and three months before your flight, while for international flights it is between two and eight months ahead of your trip. 

However, there’s more to finding affordable airfare than just getting the timing right. Here are three travel expert-approved tips for National Cheap Flights Day. 

If you know there’s a trip that you want to take this year but you’re not ready to buy your tickets yet, that shouldn’t stop you from perusing flights. Doing this periodically in the weeks or months before you book can be help you get your bearings and set your expectations for how much you’ll want to pay.

Nastro recommends using search sites like Google Flights, Skyscanner and Momondo to compare prices. 

“It doesn’t matter where you’re searching as long as you get a good sampling of those flights from multiple different areas,” she says. “That will give you a better understanding each week and each month of what those flight prices look like.” 

Gemma Jamieson, Skyscanner’s senior global PR manager, says putting in the time while doing your research may help save you money in the long run.

“Airlines are being really clever about pricing and competing with each other. They’re watching data, they’re watching traveler behavior and they’re mapping out these pockets where they can be super competitive,” she says. “Doing a little bit of extra comparison, going a little bit further and shopping around for just a little bit longer than you might normally could save you lots and lots of money.” 

The biggest mistake you can make when it comes to searching for cheap flights is waiting until the last second in hopes that the flight you want will drop in price. This is especially true if you’re starting to look at holiday travel.

“Airfare tends to go in the upward direction, especially when we’re getting into peak season,” Nastro says. “The holidays are when you really want to avoid booking at the last minute.”

She wants to dispel the common misconception that airlines will add at the last minute just because an existing one sold out. 

“That’s not really how it works,” Nastro says. “There’s not an endless supply of backup flights that they can just throw on the schedule.”

If you don’t have a set destination or dates you need to travel, you’re in the best position to find the cheapest airfare possible. 

“If you’re able to, keeping an open mind is the ultimate way to save money,” Jamieson says. “People who have kept an open mind in the past have driven the rise of destinations like Croatia, which is now a sort of European summer vacation staple.”

Likewise, Nastro says “flexibility is going to be your best friend when you’re looking for a really affordable flight.”

If you know where and when you need to fly, your next best bet is being flexible about what airlines you take. By limiting yourself to only airlines where you have points or status, you could be cutting yourself off from not only better rates, but also more convenient flight times. 

“You’re really missing out on some great fares if you’re only pigeonholing yourself to one or two specific carriers,” she says. “I understand people have preference, but if your concern is finding affordable flights, opening up your scope can really help you do that.”

Jamieson recommends exploring not only round-trip options, but also one-way flights in each direction to see if there are other airlines that have better rates. 

“Explore your options,” Jamieson says. “Break down your trip a little bit so you’re not necessarily flying out with the same airline you return with.” 

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s The Moment series, where highly successful people reveal the critical moment that changed the trajectory of their lives and careers, discussing what drove them to make the leap into the unknown.

Emery Wells put himself on the path to a dream career by recklessly buying a $17,500 camera that he definitely couldn’t afford.

Wells, 42, is the CEO of Frame.io, a video collaboration software business he co-founded in 2014 and sold to Adobe for $1.275 billion in 2021.

Nearly two decades ago, he was a 25-year-old freelance video editor who’d recently quit bartending in New York to pursue a full-time film career. At an industry trade show in 2006, he watched a startup called Red Digital Cinema announce its intention to build a digital camera high-quality enough for big-budget Hollywood productions.

Without hesitating, a colleague put down a $1,000 deposit to get on the product’s waitlist. “I was shocked,” Wells tells CNBC Make It. “And out of, really, just jealousy, I said: ‘Well, I’m signing up [too].’”

The deposit nearly maxed out his credit card’s $1,200 limit, he recalls: “I was already in debt … and I think I may have had a few hundred dollars in my bank account at the time.” When his Red One camera shipped a couple years later, he found a way to scrounge up the rest of its cost.

Being among the few people in New York to own one altered the trajectory of Wells’ career, he says. Suddenly, he was in high demand. By 2014, his post-production company Katabatic Digital brought in more than $1 million in annual revenue from clients like Coca-Cola and Pfizer.

But the real money, it turns out, was in a piece of software built by Wells and Katabatic engineer John Traver — a platform for people to collaboratively give feedback on videos throughout the post-production process. When they launched Frame.io as a standalone tool, more than 15,000 clients signed up.

Wells faced a decision: Focus on the established, stable business or dedicate himself to a hot, but unproven, startup? He opted for the latter, shuttering Katabatic to focus on Frame.io full-time.

The startup raised more than $80 million in funding over the next five years, and as Wells and Traver weighed an IPO, Adobe made them a billion-dollar offer they couldn’t refuse.

Here, Wells discusses the risks of giving up a sure thing to take a chance on a bigger opportunity and the reckless purchase that made it all possible.

CNBC Make It: You built Katabatic Digital into a successful business. What made you start thinking about sacrificing it for something bigger?

Wells: Post-production is client service work. Sometimes you have clients. Sometimes you don’t, and there’s nothing to do.

I hired John Traver to do post-production stuff, but he had a minor in computer science. We started tinkering on software ideas over the course of several months. I don’t think there was a super serious goal of creating a software company, because we didn’t know that we could.

We said, “Why don’t we spend some time building something that we know really, really well, that we know there’s a market for, we know we can solve the problem better, and we know we could make some money doing it?”

When did you realize Frame.io might be big enough that you’d have to shift your focus away from Katabatic? How did you make that decision?

In 2014, we were trying to raise money for Frame.io. One serial entrepreneur told us, “I would never give you $1, and nor would any other investor, until you’re all in. Not 99%. You cannot have this other thing. I’m not giving you money to do a side project.”

It really resonated with me. I was like, “Oh, gosh. Do I have to shut down? What do I do?”

As we got closer to the launch, where people could pay for Frame.io and use it, my time naturally shifted towards it. I started turning down work from clients, because we were spending all of our time trying to get this thing ready.

I think it was starting to form in my mind: If we’re going to really go for this, we have to really go for it.

Did it feel like a major risk to abandon Katabatic for something much less certain?

I’d spent almost a decade building this post-production company from scratch. I probably had a few hundred thousand dollars in savings, and I spent a lot of that money on Frame.io. So, yeah, it was definitely a huge risk.

But it was a calculated one, and I was getting signals on the success of Frame.io along the way [from customers and investors] that encouraged me to take more risk and more risk and more risk. In the first 90 days after we publicly launched, we were doing $30,000 of monthly recurring revenue. We raised a $2 million seed round from Accel.

That was the moment I was like, “OK.” I don’t think I ever personally took another post-production job at that point.

Did you always think Frame.io could become a billion-dollar company? Was it a big, “swing for the fences” idea?

Frame.io is the idea that became bigger and bigger and bigger the more time we spent thinking about it. When we launched, I wouldn’t say I had conviction that it was going to be a billion-dollar business.

I think that’s true for a lot of founders. Not to compare myself to Mark Zuckerberg, but there’s these fun interviews of Mark from the early days talking about how big Facebook was going to get. He’s like, “I don’t think we’re ever going to [grow beyond college students].”

It just happens. You go from $1 million in revenue to $3 million to $6 million. Then you’re pitching how you’re going to get to $10 million, $20 million and beyond. And I’m like, “Are we? I don’t know if we’re really going to get there.”

Every single fundraising round, you have to sell that pitch to every investor you talk to — but if I’m being honest, I [didn’t] know.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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In June 2017, I was let go from a journalism job and decided to spend the summer working a temporary gig and saving money to travel in the fall. When I got back to the States in December, I felt I was ready to find my next role in journalism. I stayed with my parents to save money on rent.

Over the course of a year, I applied to dozens of jobs. Some led to emails with the hiring manager or recruiter. Others to the first phone conversation. At least one led to seven rounds of interviews with no offer at the end of the process. Over the first six months alone, I interviewed at more than 10 different companies to no avail. No one would hire me.

Getting rejected time and time again was extremely disheartening. I felt worthless. I was depressed. What was I if not the title I got from my job? What proof did I have that I mattered?

There are currently 7.2 million unemployed people in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with 1.5 million of them being long-term unemployed, or out of work for 27 weeks or more. Many of them might be feeling the very same pain I felt that year.

For me, though, it was exactly that emotional toll that led to some critical shifts in how I approach my work life. These shifts have stayed with me ever since and helped me build a much healthier relationship with work.

I remember one night in May 2018, heartbroken and lying in my parents’ basement, I came to the first realization.

I had been working as a journalist for seven years. I’d written for national publications like The New York Times and local ones like the Village Voice. But when it came to my self-worth and sense of accomplishment, none of it mattered.

Regardless of what I did, nothing was ever enough. It felt like I had this big hole in my stomach, and no matter how many published articles I chucked into it, it never filled up. It only got bigger. My relationship with work left me empty.

“I always say that perspective comes at an extremely high cost,” says Janna Koretz, a clinical psychologist and expert on leadership and mental health. “When people go through a difficult thing, whatever that is, personal, professional […] You gain a perspective in that.”

When my professional black hole dawned on me, I decided to shift my perspective on my career. If I never got to write professionally again, I thought, everything I’d done thus far was plenty to be proud of and glean joy from. It was already enough.

A few months later, the ongoing application process took its toll again. I started pinning all my worth on getting any response from hiring managers.

I was talking to a friend who’d recently had his own change of heart about work as a result of a debilitating neurological disorder. And he gave me an assignment. Imagine a world in which there was no work, he said, and write a list of human characteristics that you bring to it. What do you add to the world just by being who you are, he said.

“I think that’s a great exercise,” says Koretz, “because you do then start to realize all the things that you do bring to the table that have nothing to do with work.” At Koretz’s practice, Azimuth Psychological, they give people a similar exercise. They lay out a scenario in which there are no jobs and their patients have unlimited money, and they ask them what they would do.

It helps people “start to realize you have more than you think, you are more than you think,” says Koretz. “It brings people a lot of hope and joy.”

That’s what I found in doing my friend’s exercise. I wrote down 11 different attributes: naturally curious, creative, seeks joy, etc. And within a couple days I felt a seismic shift in my body. I realized I could love work and put my all into it, but it didn’t define me as a person. It was just something I did in my day-to-day.

Going forward, looking for a job was a much easier process. I was able to approach my search with a greater sense of calm and perspective on what it meant for my life. I didn’t need to accomplish anything else, only to find something I could live off and enjoy doing. And my entire worth as a human didn’t rest on getting hired.

I also put as much of an emphasis on everything else I did in life, like spending time with my friends and doing some creative writing on the side. They’re lessons I’ve thought about again and again as a reminder of what matters to me.

In the fall of 2018, I finally got hired. I was thrilled to be able to start a new job, but by then I was approaching work a little bit differently. I knew though I could enjoy work for the successes it brought, ultimately, I had nothing to prove.

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