When I first heard about the concept of passive income in my 20s, I laughed at the idea. Growing up, I had never met anyone who made money this way. 

My mindset completely changed after a conversation I had with a woman I really looked up to. She earned passive income from her real estate business. Seeing someone who I knew and trusted achieve this seemingly impossible goal, made me feel like I could do it too — although it took some time to finally get there myself. 

Four years ago, I was dealing with postpartum depression and struggling with a 9-to-5 job in higher education administration that didn’t bring me joy. I decided to start selling digital products like business templates and party games on Etsy. To my surprise and delight, the side hustle started to take off. 

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As a 36-year-old mom of two, I now make $10,000 in passive income or more every month from four passive income streams. 

Here is my best advice for starting a successful side hustle: 

Passive income doesn’t mean no work. It means front-loaded work that pays off later. No matter what kind of side hustle or passive income venture you are starting, thorough research can help you avoid costly mistakes.

Many people get excited about their first idea or opportunity and jump at it, without running the numbers. For example, when I first started on Etsy I made budgeting templates. I found that these didn’t sell very well because there was low demand and high competition. 

It was only after I took the time to research keywords and trends through Pinterest and Google Trends in the space, that I started to create more specific — and more successful — items for the shop. 

I highly recommend doing financial projections and understanding the expenses you’ll have before you ever spend a penny. One of the main reasons businesses fail, or never begin to thrive, is because they run out of money. 

In many cases, this problem can be predicted and dealt with proactively if you take the time early on to project your expenses.

Building passive income streams requires an investment of time, and many people underestimate how much time they need to allocate upfront. 

It’s easy to get distracted by day-to-day responsibilities (especially as a parent or full-time employee), but they’ll never come to fruition if you don’t make time to work on your passive income projects. 

Schedule dedicated time each week to focus on and stick to your passive income goals. For example, when I first started, I would spend 8-10 hours each week developing the skills I needed for my business, and I did this for months. 

Once I became serious, I started spending 20-30 hours a week actively creating products. Now I spend as a little as 15 minutes a day working on it, responding to messages and client inquiries. 

Studying successful passive income earners has taught me that success doesn’t come from quick wins but rather slow and steady progress toward a specific goal over time. In short, consistency is key.

The beauty of passive income is that it allows you to earn money without everyday active involvement. Automation is your best friend in this process. 

Because I sell digital products on Etsy, the platform comes with the ability to deliver automatically once a payment is processed. I use Convertkit to automate my email marketing.

Automation can save you time and help your income streams remain steady. I’ve found that failing to automate means more manual and mental work, and less freedom.

No one achieves success entirely on their own. Seeking help from mentors, financial advisors, and experts can significantly boost your chances of success. 

I dabbled with side hustles for years, but it wasn’t until I found a course by Gold City Ventures while listening to a podcast that taught me how to sell digital products on Etsy that I successfully created a passive income business.

After taking the course, I was able to get my business up and running and making money in about a month. It took about nine months before I started making passive income consistently. 

Surround yourself with people who have the knowledge and experience you lack. They can offer valuable insights, keep you accountable, and help you avoid pitfalls. 

Most importantly, they can encourage you when you feel like giving up.

Relying on a single source of income can leave you vulnerable to market fluctuations and unexpected changes. I’ve talked to so many business owners who are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic because they put all their eggs in one basket: Their business. 

My passive income portfolio includes stocks, bonds, real estate, and my small business, which sells digital products on Etsy and on my website. 

Diversification is essential to spreading the risk and increasing the chances of consistent returns.

I’ve seen countless people get stuck in the planning phase, waiting for the “right moment” that never comes. I’ve made that mistake too.

I credit studying positive psychology in grad school with helping me break free of those fears. Marilee Adams’s book “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” helped me develop more of a growth mindset and change my internal dialogue from asking questions like, “Why bother?” to more optimistic ones like, “What can I learn?” 

The truth is, there’s no perfect time to start, and failure is always a possibility. However, the sooner you take action in a smart way, the sooner you can learn, and the higher your chances of reaping the rewards. 

Even small steps, like starting to research and educating yourself, can lead to significant progress over time. It’s vital not to let fear of failure or analysis paralysis keep you from starting your journey to passive income.

Rachel Jimenez is an entrepreneur, professor and mom of two, with a passion for helping others achieve their personal, professional and passive income goals. She runs an Etsy store as well as a blog, Money Hacking Mama, where she shares financial wisdom and practical advice for women navigating their careers, businesses and life.

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.

To live a meaningful, fulfilling life, you have to accept that it’ll eventually come to an end, says Shoshana Ungerleider.

Over the years of caring for ill hospital patients, Ungerleider — a doctor who specializes in internal medicine — has observed regrets among people near the end of their lives, she tells CNBC Make It.

“Being proximate to the end of your life really allows you — pushes you — to be present because that’s all you have,” says Ungerleider, 44, host of the upcoming “Before We Go” podcast and founder of the nonprofit End Well Foundation. “That is true for all of us. Throughout our lives, this present moment is all we have.”

Here are five regrets she says people often express:

• I didn’t spend enough time with the people I love.
• I worked too much and missed out on life.
• I let fear control my decisions and didn’t take risks.
• I wish I’d been braver in the face of uncertainty or opportunity.
• I focused too much on the future and lost touch with the present.

Ungerleider’s advice for getting ahead of those regrets is simple: Remind yourself that your time is limited and unpredictable, and regularly ask yourself some big, important questions. How do I want to spend my time? What matters most to me in my life?

She particularly encourages young people, who often haven’t yet faced significant health challenges — in themselves or their loved ones — to think of that reflection as “really integral to living for a long, healthy life — with good quality of life.”

“As a doctor, I’d recommend eating a balanced diet, and exercising regularly, and avoiding things like smoking and high-risk activities. Reflecting on mortality should really be on that list,” she says, adding, “Reflecting on our own mortality throughout life, whether you’re 20, 50, 80, whatever, allows us to live better every day with more meaning and purpose in our lives.”

The mere acknowledgment that you’re going to die is a helpful way to find meaning in “the little things that bring us joy,” author Alua Arthur told “The Happiness Lab” podcast in a July episode.

“Grounding in my mortality means that at some point I won’t have access to all these senses anymore,” said Arthur, who’s also the founder of Going With Grace, a Los Angeles-based end-of-life planning and support organization. “And so, how cool is it that I can feel cold on my hands? How cool is it that I have plates for me to eat off of?”

Ungerleider’s observations are similar to those of Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and Bronnie Ware, an author and former palliative care worker.

On their deathbeds, people often wish they’d expressed more love and forgiveness to people they care about, Mukherjee said in a commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania in May. “Waiting [to express yourself] merely delays the inevitable,” he noted.

In Ware’s 2011 book “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying,” she wrote that the most common regret she heard was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

“Many did not realise [sic] until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits,” she wrote in a blog post. “Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.”

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.

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Startups aiming to revolutionize artificial intelligence technology and health care are among the buzziest organizations to work for right now — and many of them are hiring for lucrative and remote jobs.

Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine headquartered in San Francisco, was named the No. 1 startup in LinkedIn’s annual analysis of startups seeing rapid growth and demand.

Ramp, a New York City-based financial tech company, fell from the top spot last year to No. 2 in 2024.

Rounding out the top three, Boston-based Cohere Health leverages AI to streamline processes in the health care system with the goal of enhancing both patient care and administrative efficiency.

LinkedIn’s top startup list recognizes 50 young U.S. companies across four key metrics: how much their headcount grew in the last year, how many non-employees are viewing their page and the profiles of their employees, rising interest in their job openings, and how many hires they’ve recruited away from other LinkedIn top companies.

Many startups have been founded since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and aim to solve problems exacerbated by the global health crisis.

Altogether, these startups represent big opportunities for tech workers, especially those with machine learning specialties. Many are also looking for workers in business development, social media, marketing, customer support and, in the case of health-care startups, registered nurses and clinical psychologists.

Here are the top 10 startups seeing high growth and demand, plus some of their open roles and pay ranges, according to LinkedIn:

What they do: An AI-powered search engine

Headquarters: San Francisco

Full-time headcount: 100 employees

Open jobs: product marketing manager ($160,000 to $190,000 per year), AI research engineer ($160,000 to $220,000 per year)

What they do: A fintech company that streamlines financial operations for businesses

Headquarters: New York City

Full-time headcount: 850 employees

Open jobs: account manager ($178,500 to $210,000 per year), staff product designer ($195,500 to $230,000 per year)

What they do: Uses AI to streamline prior authorization for health-care services

Headquarters: Boston

Full-time headcount: 800 employees

Open jobs: threat/vulnerability management lead ($130,000 to $155,000 per year), director of product marketing ($160,000 to $180,000 per year)

What they do: Connects patients with mental health care providers covered by their insurance

Headquarters: New York City

Full-time headcount: 585 employees

Open jobs: creative operations lead ($155,000 per year), senior product manager of patient experience ($200,000 per year)

What they do: Automates manual tasks for health care organizations

Headquarters: San Francisco

Full-time headcount: 225 employees

Open jobs: software engineer ($135,000 to $175,000 per year), enterprise account executive ($100,000 to $300,000 per year)

What they do: A cloud security platform that identifies and eliminates security risks for organizations

Headquarters: New York City

Full-time headcount: 1,300 employees

Open jobs: senior product marketing manager ($166,500 to $229,000 per year), DevOps engineer ($145,000 to $199,000 per year)

What they do: Virtual health care provider focused on mental health treatment for teens and adults

Headquarters: Bozeman, Montana

Full-time headcount: 1,500 employees

Open jobs: director of learning and development ($148,5000 to $211,800 per year), manager of sales operations ($140,000 to $152,500 per year)

What they do: Telehealth platform that matches patients with licensed in-network therapist

Headquarters: New York City

Full-time headcount: 370 employees

Open jobs: delegated credentialing manager ($110,000 to $140,000 per year), provider marketing operations manager ($110,000 to $140,000 per year)

What they do: Health and wellness retailer that sells supplements

Headquarters: Venice, California

Full-time headcount: 67 employees

Open jobs: production artist, event manager (Bloom Nutrition did not provide salary data on their LinkedIn job posts)

What they do: Creates virtual characters for video games and digital experiences using AI

Headquarters: Mountain View, California

Full-time headcount: 50 employees

Open jobs: staff machine learning engineer ($240,000 to $385,000 per year), vice president of sales ($250,000 to $300,000)

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.

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Michelle, 42, and Ryan, 43, love their three young kids. And spend a lot of money to show it. 

“I don’t say, ‘We don’t have the money, we can’t afford it.’ I don’t say those things,” Michelle told self-made millionaire Ramit Sethi on a recent two-part episode of his “I Will Teach You to be Rich” podcast. Their last names were not used.

Ryan earns nearly $140,000 a year as the sole financial provider, and the couple has a net worth of around $970,000. But they’re stressed about their day-to-day finances and constantly dip into their savings to cover their regular expenses. 

“It’s a sinking ship,” Ryan said. “It can’t continue this way because we will run out of money.”

Their fixed costs, including their mortgage, insurance, transportation and other necessities, total more than their monthly income. Plus, their spending has gotten out of control on what the couple calls “little things,” that just add up. Sometimes it’s necessary purchases like a carbon monoxide detector, but often it’s more discretionary like a beach canopy. They spend nearly $2,000 a month at Target and Amazon alone.

“You are losing money every single month,” Sethi told them. “You’re broke.”

Here’s why the couple feels stuck in their situation, and Sethi’s advice to help them to move forward.

When Sethi asked about their spending problems, Michelle and Ryan kept referring back to Target and Amazon purchases. 

In addition to necessities like groceries and diapers, the couple also rack up $15 to $30 impulse buys, such as kids’ sunglasses, soccer equipment and bike tires, that ultimately add up. “It really is death by 1,000 paper cuts on the Amazon front,” Michelle said.

Sethi wasn’t sold, however. Making a more conscious effort to cut out unnecessary spending can help, but the couple needs to look at the bigger picture, he said. 

DON’T MISS: How to master your money and grow your wealth

It’s not just that they make a lot of spontaneous purchases, but that they have no systems in place to help them make better decisions. When Sethi asked the couple where they could cut, Michelle was skeptical that she could significantly reduce those bills because many of those expenses felt necessary.

“This is what happens when you let your spending get out of control,” Sethi said. “It becomes incredibly difficult to downsize because the human mind convinces you that everything you have accumulated is absolutely necessary.”

He recommended looking at their big discretionary spending areas, like dining out and shopping at Target, and gradually cutting their spending by 50% over six weeks until they’ve stabilized. From there, they will hopefully be able to see things more clearly.

It’ll take an adjustment to start telling their kids “no,” but it will help their children develop a better relationship with money as they grow up, too, Sethi said.

Sethi doesn’t often tell people they’re saving too much money. But with Ryan and Michelle, it’s part of the problem.

Michelle takes pride in the way she built up her savings and investments by sticking to good habits throughout her 20s. Ryan wasn’t as prudent with his cash, Michelle said, but bought their house on his own before they got together. 

Overall, that has helped the couple amass around $585,000 in assets, including their home and nearly $468,000 in retirement savings and other investments. 

“In retirement we’re set, and right now we’re screwed,” Michelle said.

At the time of the podcast’s recording, the couple was allocating 14% of their take-home pay toward retirement and other post-tax investments. While that’s a great strategy to build up investments, especially while they’re fairly young, it doesn’t work with the rest of their monthly spending.

“When it comes to your spending, you’re spending way too much,” Sethi told them. “And when it comes to your investments, you already have enough if you were to literally stop today.”

The couple realized cutting back those monthly investments will give them the cash flow they need to cover their necessities and feel confident in splurging on things that are important to them but have gone neglected, like date nights. 

“The biggest breakthrough happened when they finally realized that they actually have control over their spending,” Sethi said. “It’s a nice cherry on top that they are over-investing so they can reallocate their cash.”

Check out part one and part two of Sethi’s conversation with Michelle and Ryan.

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

Post-grad life looks a lot different than 24-year-old Sharon Kim previously pictured.

For one, she decided to pivot from pursuing a career in fashion to working in the tech industry as a UX designer. And two, she bought a $750,000 home in the suburbs of New York City with her oldest brother and his wife, rather than renting an apartment in Manhattan with roommates.

“I did not ever imagine that I would be living with my brother, with his wife, purchasing a home post-college,” she tells CNBC Make It. “I didn’t really think it was possible with all the student loans I had and still figuring out my career.”

Kim and her brother weren’t very close growing up, thanks to a seven-year age gap. By the time she was finishing college, he was about to enter his thirties. However, he still wanted to look after his baby sister, she says, and invited Kim to move into the Queens apartment he shared with his wife after she graduated from Parsons School of Design in May 2023 as a way to save money.

It took some getting used to.

While Kim was grateful to crash on his couch, the trio would have small disagreements about household chores, such as vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen after dinner, she says. Plus, since her brother and his wife converted their den into a makeshift bedroom for Kim, they didn’t have a lot of space to spread out in the roughly 700-square-foot apartment.

It “was only meant for one or two people,” she says. “It felt very cramped.”

Although they improved their communication and figured out a chore schedule that worked for everyone, they knew that it wasn’t sustainable for all three of them to live together in the one-bedroom unit for an extended period of time.

Since homeownership was a shared long-term goal, they began researching what types of homes they would be able to afford by combining their finances.

Kim earned a little over $111,000 in 2022 and around $51,000 in 2023 from her YouTube channel, where she shares lifestyle content, like tips on getting into Parsons and how she made the switch to a career in tech. She also landed a job in UX design in 2023, which pays around $94,000 a year, as a more stable form of income.

Nearly one year, 20 open houses and three rejected offers later, they found their dream home: a three-bedroom, two-bathroom fixer-upper with a finished basement in the suburbs of New York City. Kim asked to keep the name of the town private for security reasons.

“Although we have our differences…knowing that at the end family is family and trying to really set aside our differences to work together has worked out for the best between us,” Kim says.

Although their homebuying journey ended happily, the search started off rocky.

Initially, Kim, her brother and his wife thought they would be to secure a home within their ideal price range with a 3.5% down payment. They weren’t picky about location either, looking for “any place that wasn’t more than an hour outside of Manhattan.”

However, they faced stiff competition from other eager homebuyers. “There was one home we were looking at that had over 100 visitors in the span of two hours for an open house,” Kim says.

They also realized a 3.5% down payment wouldn’t cut it against other buyers who outbid them or made all-cash offers on the homes they were considering, she says.

The trio knew they needed to make more compelling bids, so they pulled additional money from their savings and investment earnings to bump their down payment offer up to 10%, which came to a little over $77,000. Kim contributed $23,000, about a third of the total.

“We anticipated that things could always be more expensive than we thought, but we didn’t realize just how much more we’d have to give,” she says. “I definitely felt a lot more stressed.”

The increased down payment gave them the leverage they needed.

After several months spent viewing over 200 dwellings online, attending 20 open houses and bidding on three of them, they found the one. In addition to offering plenty of space, the home has an abundance of natural light and an open floor plan. But the main selling point was the safety of the neighborhood, Kim says.

Three months later, they closed on the property for around $750,000 with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and an interest rate of around 6.9%. Kim owns 30%, while her brother and sister-in-law own the other 70%. And since they put less than 20% down, a portion of their mortgage payments go toward private mortgage insurance.

“It felt unreal to me, and I felt like I was living in a dream,” she says. “It still doesn’t feel real to me.”

Ownership was just the beginning for Kim and her brother. Next came renovations on the nearly 70-year-old home.

“We didn’t really go for homes that were fully renovated because some of the renovations may not be personalized to our tastes,” she says. “We’d rather handpick everything ourselves and do the labor ourselves.”

With their apartment lease up in two months, they quickly got to work installing new flooring throughout the home, adding decorative crown molding and replacing kitchen appliances, including the sink and refrigerator.

“Every weekend, we would go to the house…from 7 a.m. all the way to 9 p.m. at night,” Kim says. “Between me, my brother and sister-in-law, we did about 80% of the renovations on our own.”

While YouTube tutorials allowed them to do much of the work themselves, they hired contractors for more complicated projects, like installing the kitchen countertops.

Kim estimates they’ve spent around $40,000 on renovations so far. She decided to open a credit card with a 0% introductory annual percentage rate for 12 months to cover her portion of the renovation costs, which came out to about $7,755.

“Considering what we would gain from having a bit of credit card debt for the short term, we still thought it was very much worth it,” she says.

Kim has a remaining balance of around $6,995 on that card, but is working to pay if off by cutting back on dining out and purchasing clothes, she says.

Kim contributes $2,500 toward the mortgage each month, which is proportional to her 30% stake in the property.

Otherwise, Kim, her brother and his wife aim to split costs evenly. “For the sake of sanity, we do everything three ways to keep things easy,” she says.

Here’s how Kim spent her money in July 2024.

• Housing and utilities: $2,876 for her portion of the mortgage, water, oil, electricity and Wi-Fi
• Discretionary: $636 for new bedding, bedroom fixtures and tithe to her church
• Home upgrades: $533 for paint, baseboards and a new showerhead
• Food: $404 on groceries and dining out
• Student loan repayment: $285
• Retirement savings: $216
• Subscriptions: $116 on her gym membership, Spotify, Amazon Prime and Apple Cloud storage
• Phone: $64
• Insurance: $41 for medical, dental and vision

Kim also has nearly $600 in a high-yield savings account.

She acknowledges that she could probably live with a roommate in Manhattan or Queens for the same amount as her mortgage payment, but enjoys knowing her money is going toward a home she owns. It “feels more worth it,” she says.

However, living in the suburbs means being further away from her friends in New York City and New Jersey. “Adjusting my social life to be more in the suburbs has definitely been a bit more of a challenge,” Kim says.

Since it takes more effort to coordinate meetups, she likes to splurge on outings such as her birthday dinner, which cost her $100 this year, she says.

“I was able to see all of my closest friends at this Italian restaurant in New York City, and from there we went to a different couple of bars,” she says. “Spending the whole night with the people that are closest to me and that I love was definitely money worth spending.”

Looking ahead, Kim hopes to be able to purchase another home with her other brother when he returns from living overseas, she says.

In the meantime, she plans to continue making renovations and upgrades to her current home with her oldest brother and his wife. Eventually, they hope to give the home to their parents when they retire, she says.

“We’re really looking out for our parents, who gave up a lot to move from South Korea to here,” Kim says. They want to gift the house to them “as a thank you.”

While she knows she’ll move out eventually, for now she’s happy living with her family — even if it means dealing with occasional squabbles over chores.

“I’m aware a lot of people my age would probably get a studio apartment or would like to live on their own, but personally, I love living with other people,” she says. “I love just having someone around in the same living situation, so I’m just thankful that I happen to be living with family and people that I trust.”

To anyone who dreams of owning a home one day: Don’t be afraid to take an unconventional approach, Kim says.

“I definitely can’t say I’ve done this on my own, but I think it’s ultimately trying to do what you can within your capacity,” she says. “If you have the capacity to work with your family, I think it’s definitely an option worth considering.”

What’s your budget breakdown? Share your story with us for a chance to be featured in a future installment.

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.