Back in 2007, I dropped out of college, despite owing about $50,000 in student loans. Believe it or not, it was the smart choice for me at the time. 

None of my friends who’d graduated were landing jobs. I knew I’d need to go even further into debt to finish my degree. And I’d already landed a great position as a public policy assistant. 

Still, starting out on such shaky financial ground was far from ideal.

Feeling uneasy about quitting school, I thought all I could do was grind it out at my job. But I’d found a passion that got me excited outside of work: video creation, which included capturing moments and telling stories. I was thrilled when I discovered this site called YouTube where I could upload my videos for free and share the links with friends.

At the same time, social media platforms like Facebook and then Twitter were becoming popular — and I realized I was pretty good at figuring out how to use them. 

I had no idea how much of a game-changer these discoveries would be. Fifteen years later, my fun hobby has become my career: It allows me to make about $18,000 a month in passive income, according to my calculations from a recent month’s deposits, and work only four hours a day.

A couple years after I dropped out of college, a friend pointed out that I had a knack for understanding video content and social media platforms. She suggested I could do it professionally. 

It was the aha moment that changed everything. My side projects weren’t just fun. They were teaching me valuable skills that were increasingly in demand. 

This led me to take the strategies I was learning about content and social media and start a side hustle. I was basically a one-woman show posting on Facebook and Twitter for small businesses to help bring them brand awareness.

I worked evenings and weekends for over a year before I quit my full-time job in 2010 to go all in on my agency.

To market my new business, I leveraged my video editing skills to share tips and tricks around social media marketing, including tutorials, resource recommendations, and content strategies. 

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During a particularly tough month with almost no revenue for the agency, I decided to try something new: selling a course teaching businesses how to create their own videos. I pitched the course to my modest email list of a couple hundred people, offering a special pre-launch price for early sign-ups. 

That was my first taste of passive income — as I recall it, I made about $1,000 in revenue in a single day from one email. 

The early validation and surge to my bank account was all the momentum I needed to create the content, which I delivered via live hour-long webinars once a week for six weeks. 

It took me about 30 hours in total to make and teach the course. But once the course was created, it became an easy source of passive income as I made it available for purchase on my website and social media channels from that point forward. 

Over a decade later, my passive income portfolio has evolved significantly.

I’ve created more than 1,000 videos about productivity and brand-building for my YouTube channel, AmyTV. Each one takes me about an hour to prepare and another hour to film, and can continue earning money indefinitely through advertising revenue and more. 

For example, a video I posted in December 2020 called “Plan Your Best Year Ever! My 7 Step Goal Setting Process” keeps growing in views every month and directing people to purchase my planner.

My community began asking time and again for something that laid out my philosophy on video content strategy. I realized that my audience was telling me they’d buy books, so I started writing them. 

I began with, “Vlog Like a Boss: How To Kill It Online With Video Blogging.” Then “Good Morning, Good Life: 5 Simple Habits to Master Your Mornings and Upgrade Your Life.” Most recently, I published “365 Days of Good Morning, Good Life: Daily Reflections to Help You Go After the Life You Want.”

I self-published through Amazon’s print-on-demand and audiobook creation platforms. Each book took an average of three weeks to write, followed by a couple months of design to get it ready for print and e-book formats. Since 2017, the three books have sold about 40,000 copies.

“Good Morning, Good Life” inspired my first non-book product: a paper planner helping people streamline their morning routines and be more productive. This has brought in over $140,000 in sales.

On average, my personal brand brings in about $18,000 monthly in passive income between YouTube ads, affiliate revenue, brand deals, and books and other products sold. 

I’ve learned that when you show up in service of others, amazing things can happen — including making more money for a better life.

Amy Landino is a personal brand coach and the award-winning creator of AmyTV on YouTube. She is an instructor in CNBC’s online course How to Earn Passive Income Online. Follow her on Instagram.

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If you want to earn six figures while working from home, consider a career in social media marketing.

Social media marketing is among the fastest-growing careers in the U.S., according to LinkedIn, spurred by the rapid adoption of e-commerce and shifts in consumer behavior post-pandemic. 

TikTok, Instagram and other platforms have become essential tools for businesses to engage with customers and promote their products or brands — and companies are eager to hire people who can help them use these platforms effectively.

Job boards FlexJobs and Freelancer.com are seeing a boom in the number of remote, hybrid and freelance social media marketing roles.

This demand shows no signs of abating: The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the digital marketing landscape — including social media marketing — is expected to grow by 8% annually, with nearly 200,000 new jobs expected to be created by 2030.

While some marketing jobs prefer candidates to have a bachelor’s degree, it’s not a prerequisite for a successful career in social media marketing.

What’s far more important, says Toni Frana, FlexJobs’ lead career expert, are the technical skills you bring to the table: Most social media marketing roles require a strong understanding of SEO, data analysis and social media advertising. 

Hiring managers also seek out people who can shoot and edit videos, manage online communities, coordinate partnerships with influencers and develop corresponding marketing campaigns to drive profit, says Sebastián Siseles, vice president of international at Freelancer.com.

Some of the most in-demand roles in this field include influencer marketing managers, social media marketing specialists and content strategists, per FlexJobs and LinkedIn.

Salaries range depending on experience, with entry-level roles starting at around $50,000 per year and seasoned strategists or managers earning upwards of $120,000.

To get started in social media marketing, you can watch tutorials on YouTube or take online courses to earn a certification in specific skills — LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, HubSpot and Google all offer certificates in digital marketing and e-commerce. 

Frana also recommends creating an online portfolio that showcases any relevant social media marketing projects or work you’ve done, including client testimonials.

This hands-on experience can be as valuable as a college degree, Frana adds, as it can demonstrate a deep understanding of engagement strategies, content curation and community management.

According to Fiverr, a freelancing marketplace, most freelance social media marketing jobs are remote, too, so social media marketing professionals can work from anywhere and set their own hours, as long as they meet their project deadlines.

Fiverr has seen steady demand for social media marketing services over the past six months: Between May and October, searches for “social media content manager” rose 493% on its platform. Searches for social media account setup, management and content editing also shot up. 

The more experienced you are, the higher you can set your rate: Social media marketing specialists on Freelancer.com charge as much as $125 per hour. 

Jennifer Shealey, a freelance digital and social media marketing specialist in Vero Beach, Florida, charges anywhere from $85 to $245 on Fiverr for her services. 

Digital marketing started as a side hustle for Shealey, who became a full-time freelancer a few years ago after losing her job as a project administrator at a tile company. 

The 46-year-old says building a roster of recurring clients and diversifying her offerings — she designs websites, creates content for Instagram and writes SEO copy for YouTube — has helped her build a successful freelance career. 

She has made over $600,000 in sales since joining Fiverr in 2014. In 2023, Shealey earned over $100,000 from freelancing on Fiverr.

Beyond the lucrative earning potential, Shealey says one of the best parts of working in social media marketing is the flexibility — both in scheduling and creative freedom. 

“It’s the kind of job you can do from home, from a van or on the road while traveling,” she says. “If you’re into creativity, analytical work and constantly learning new things, it’s a great field to get into. We certainly need more people in digital marketing, even I can’t keep up with the demand.”

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Last summer, Shawn Allard asked his parents a question that changed the trajectory of his career.

The Phoenix-based dental consultant wanted to find a job where he could express his creativity, be in charge and build a community, he says. In other words, he wanted to run a business. A broker sent him a listing: The founder of Novel Ice Cream, which owned two local scoop shops in Arizona, wanted to sell.

The parties agreed on a $1.1 million purchase price for Novel. Allard got a loan from the Small Business Administration to cover 90% of it, he says. He asked his parents for a separate loan, for the last 10%. They said yes.

“I went to my family and presented them [with] the opportunity to buy Novel Ice Cream,” says Allard. “They really liked the idea, and so they graciously put down the $110,000, which was 10% of the purchase price, to buy [it].”

Allard bought the scoop shops — located in Phoenix and Mesa, respectively — in August 2023. Novel broke even last year, bringing in roughly $1.2 million in annual revenue, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Allard anticipates profit margins between 3% and 5% this year, he says.

“I took home $0 in net income in 2023, and lived primarily off of savings, to reinvest back into the business. [This year] I will take home about $40,000 in net income,” he says. “I’m living way below my means so I can invest as much as possible back into my business.”

He’s also learning just how difficult running a business can be.

“On a day-to-day basis, this game is very stressful,” says Allard. “It’s hard, but that’s what comes with the territory … Wrapping your head around that reality is going to make your day-to-day a lot easier.”

Novel is perhaps most well-known for a bit of social media virality: You can get your ice cream stuffed between two glazed donuts or Belgian waffles, if you want. The stores aren’t big enough to house ice cream production, so Allard outsources that work to chefs in two different Arizona-based kitchens.

“Producing the amount of ice cream we do on a daily basis or weekly basis is a challenge due to how retail fluctuates week to week,” he says. “So we want to make sure that we’re prepared for upswings and downswings in volume.”

Allard’s stores rotate their flavors regularly, and stay open late — until 1 a.m. two days per week, and midnight three days per week — helping them build reputations as family-friendly, late-night hangout spots during Arizona’s scorching summers, says Allard.

“We’re actually creating an exclusive flavor for a gentleman who [challenged] himself to come to Novel for 30 days straight,” he adds. “Ethan’s Creamy Surprise” has a coconut cream base with blueberries, marshmallows, halva and a chocolate drizzle — not a flavor for the weak-hearted.

Nearly a year in, Allard says running a business is more stressful than he anticipated. Being adaptable and making the best of every moment helps him remain positive and optimistic, he says.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, this is not glamorous. It’s hard and it’s stressful, and there’s a lot on the line, especially when you have debt involved,” says Allard. “When you’re trying to expand, when you’re putting all of the capital back into your business, it’s a challenge to look forward into the future and not get anxiety from the unknown.”

Allard pays roughly $15,000 per month to stay current on his SBA loan. He’s planning to pay his parents back with interest over the next five years, he says. His parents chip in beyond the loan, too: Allard’s dad Daryl, a construction project manager, is delivering supplies and materials for Novel’s third location, set to open later this year.

“A lot of the things that happen inside and outside of the shop would be extremely expensive if I didn’t have the support around me to help,” says Allard.

In the short-term, Allard hopes to break $1.3 million in 2024 sales. He recently bought a mobile truck for $30,000 — he’ll need to spend $10,000 more on equipment, he says — and plans to launch it later this year for events, weddings and festivals.

Longer term, he wants to build one central facility for making Novel’s ice cream and donuts, and open two or three new locations each year. Growing a small business quickly is often a tall task: Allard says he’s embracing the challenge of maintaining Novel’s quality and focus on local community-building.

“The two most important aspects of business are product quality and customer experience,” says Allard. “And those are the two things we double down on and focus most on here. And as we continue to grow, we will not jeopardize either of those things.”

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Even billionaires think about starting side hustles.

If Mark Cuban were 16 years old again and “needed to make some extra money,” he’d start one specific side hustle in just three steps, he tells CNBC Make It.

First, he’d learn how to write prompts for artificial intelligence language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Next, he’d teach his friends how to use those prompts on their school papers. “Then, I would go to businesses, particularly small- to medium-sized businesses that don’t understand AI yet,” says Cuban. “Doesn’t matter if I’m 16, I’d be teaching them as well.”

More than half of Gen Zers in the U.S. currently have side hustles, a LendingTree report found in February. AI prompt engineering — or, the ability to phrase inquiries to chatbots to get desired responses — can be a particularly lucrative opportunity. The average pay for AI tutors starts at about $30,000 per year, and full-time AI prompt engineers can make up to $129,500, according to job board platform ZipRecruiter.

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You don’t need a college degree to become an AI prompt engineer, but you do need practice — and, often, certifications — to learn how those large language models operate. Some online certification courses, like Vanderbilt University or IBM’s offerings on Coursera, say you can master the basics in one month.

Cuban’s hypothetical side hustle is more high-tech than his actual first job, selling garbage bags door-to-door to his neighbors outside of Pittsburgh at age 12 to save up for a new pair of basketball shoes. He continued to earn extra cash as a teenager by selling collectibles like baseball cards, stamps, and coins, eventually helping him pay to attend Indiana University. There, he bartended, hosted parties with cover charges and even picked up work as a dance instructor.

After a brief post-college stint in banking, Cuban turned to entrepreneurship full-time. He sold his first company, a software startup called MicroSolutions, to CompuServe for $6 million in 1990. His second company, audio streaming service Broadcast.com, made him a billionaire when he sold it to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999.

Today, Cuban has a net worth of $5.7 billion, according to a Forbes estimate. He spends much of his time advocating for his online pharmacy Cost Plus Drugs, which aims to make a variety of common prescription drugs more affordable by selling them at cost, plus a 15% markup.

 “I was a hustler … I have always been selling,” he said during an episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank” that aired in 2016. “I always had something going on. That was just my nature.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Mark Cuban sold garbage bags door-to-door at age 12.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.

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While love is a deeply important aspect of romantic relationships, it isn’t everything — and relying on love alone may not lead to a successful relationship. 

“Love is great and all, but it can only take you so far,” Mindy, a 39-year old software consultant, told self-made millionaire and money expert Ramit Sethi on a recent episode of his podcast. She and her boyfriend, Victor, 25, came on Sethi’s show to better understand how to handle money as a couple. Their last names were not used.

“I want to be a functioning team,” Mindy said. “And I tell him all the time, step up your game because I don’t want to be carrying your weight. We’re a team. We’ve got to move forward.”

At the time of the podcast’s recording, Mindy was earning around $148,000 annually while Victor, the owner of a boxing gym, was bringing in $28,800. They live together and share expenses, but Mindy has been bearing the brunt of their costs. And in about two months, she’s been told her company is laying her off.

Not only are their salaries mismatched, but Mindy and Victor have been struggling to see eye to eye on money in general, which is why they wanted to sit down with Sethi. 

Despite the upcoming loss of Mindy’s income, the couple is fairly well-prepared to weather a few months of expenses if she can’t replace her salary right away. Combined, they have a little over $25,000 in savings and another $47,000 in investments, including their 401(k)s.

That’s the result of Mindy’s careful planning and preparation, though. Victor has avoided financial conversations and learning more about money thus far, leaving Mindy frustrated and tired of bearing the burden on her own.

“I wish he spent more time thinking about money and writing it down on paper, analyzing, knowing his numbers,” Mindy said.

The couple’s long-term success — both romantically and financially — will depend on their ability to work together as effective teammates, Sethi said. He echoed Mindy’s sentiment that love isn’t always enough and added that with regards to money, the individuals need to function more like business partners. 

“It is the business of running a household,” he said. “What if we have to buy a house? What if somebody gets sick? What if somebody dies, [or we need to be] taking care of elderly parents? That is a business, and we need to be pragmatic about it.”

That doesn’t mean Victor needs to match Mindy’s salary, Sethi said. But he does need to take on a more active role in the couple’s financial planning.

“What Mindy is looking for is more than just income,” Sethi said. “It is you being a partner in the relationship…It’s getting educated about money because there’s a whole language you don’t understand about money right now.”

Victor acknowledged he has been hesitant to engage with money because he’s content living a “simple life,” but he needs to be a better partner for Mindy and keep growing his business.

“She’s 13 years older than me, so I feel like she already passed all her 20s and all that. I’m still trying to figure it out, which is not bad,” Victor said. “I like the fact that I have a little bit like a fire under my ass…I want to get there for her and for me.”

Victor needs to educate himself on money in general, but Mindy also needs to be specific about what she wants from him, Sethi said.

Mindy should clearly communicate her expectations and consider real consequences if he doesn’t follow through. After all, if one partner continually drops the ball in a business, that partnership probably won’t be sustainable.

“If you want to change the way that you interact with money, you’ve got to start respecting money,” Sethi said. That means taking it seriously and treating your partner like an equal.

“I want to know what’s going on with my money, not because I’m obsessed with money… [but] because money is one of the foundational elements in a relationship,” Sethi said. 

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