I didn’t think about leaving the U.S. to live somewhere else until very recently. 

My father is from Jamaica, so I have always felt a connection to the island, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally visited for the first time. 

I was struck by the joy I felt surrounded by the culture, the food, and so many family members and new friends. This spring, I made the leap and moved with my two youngest kids to Negril, Jamaica.

DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to negotiating a higher salary

Back in the States, I was often ill and had very high blood pressure. Over the last several months, to my surprise and delight, following the example of the vibrant older folks in my community, my stress has lifted and I am so much healthier. 

Overall, I feel like I have a better chance of longevity here. 

Here are the biggest lessons I have learned from the senior citizens in my community:

One of my neighbors, in his mid-to-late 60s, can do a backflip and often climbs trees to pick fruit. He is just one example of the vibrant senior citizens in my area. 

Many people wash their clothes by hand, as I have started to, and hang them on the line. People devote a lot of time to tending their gardens.  

I spend almost all day outside working. I’ve tried doing that in the States, but as soon as the season changes, I go back in and may or may not come out again.

But thanks to the temperate year-round weather here, my veranda “office” is always open.

In hindsight, I feel like the dependence on cars in the U.S. made it harder for me to enjoy nature and the company of other people. 

In North Carolina, so many things are drive-thru, from pharmacies to fast food. By virtue of how my town was designed, everyone was reliant on a vehicle. In the U.S., I drove everywhere, including to take my daughter to daycare, even though it was just up the street.

In my community in Negril, most people walk and use public transportation, especially seniors, to get around and do their errands.

I walk much more since I got here, and I’ll stroll to the store most days. Jamaica is also very hilly and mountainous, so you regularly have to go up inclines. It’s been so positive for my health.

The food here is fantastic, especially the produce. Fruit trees are everywhere, and there is such a variety of fresh vegetables. 

To me, the food in Jamaica tastes different from the food in the U.S. It is not super processed, or overly salty or sweet. I don’t eat traditional fast food here, although there are restaurants that serve it. I prefer to go to a skilled local vendor and try some of their wares. 

You don’t have to go far to find someone selling delicious, healthy and inexpensive food, whether it is freshly caught fish, porridge, lovely cold coconuts, or some of my favorite dishes like jerk chicken, brown stew, bully beef and beef patties.

You will frequently see people, especially older folks, talking, playing dominoes or Ludi, and laughing together. When people aren’t feeling well, neighbors will share their favorite herbal remedies. 

We are often invited to neighborhood gatherings, even as newcomers. On a Sunday, for example, people might go to church, relax, go to the river, do some “bush cooking” — preparing and serving delicious meals outside. It’s a very laid-back atmosphere, and I felt welcome right away. 

I rarely saw anyone in my neighborhood in the States. I knew only about four of my neighbors on the street and I lived in that house for seven years. I would see people in passing and wave, but then we would just go back to our lives. 

It’s odd not to know or talk to your neighbors here. Every time I see a neighbor in Jamaica, we sit and chat. 

I didn’t realize how high-stress and individualistic the culture could be in the United States until we left. I was on autopilot all day, every day.

The pace of island life forced me to slow down, start paying attention to how I felt, and challenged my beliefs of what life should be. Moving shook up my routine, removed me from daily stressors, and allowed me to create a new reality. 

Small changes definitely add up, and getting out of my comfort zone helped me make these new habits stick, for the better.

Tiffany Grant is a financial educator, writer, podcaster and coach. Before she was an entrepreneur, Tiffany was an HR professional. She is the founder and host of ″Money Talk with Tiff,” an Accredited Financial Counselor and holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Want to earn more money at work? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Negotiate a Higher Salary. Expert instructors will teach you the skills you need to get a bigger paycheck, including how to prepare and build your confidence, what to do and say, and how to craft a counteroffer. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 50% off through Nov. 26, 2024.

Megan Walsh jolted awake at 2 a.m. and anxiously paced around her bedroom in Manahawkin, New Jersey.

It was March 2021, and she was completely overwhelmed. Walsh, normally a part-time endoscopy nurse, was working full-time to help with the influx of patients at her hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her father, a gardener, had died six months prior, she says.

In nursing school, she made crafts and sold them on online marketplace Etsy as a stress outlet. Seeking the same relief, Walsh sat at her computer and researched ways to be artsy with plants as an homage to her dad.

Aromatherapy calmed her at home, so she ordered a pound of fragrant eucalyptus online for $40, and used it to create some wall decor in her living room. Her decor — which now features various other dried flowers, too — brought in more than $121,400 in sales on Etsy last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Walsh’s shop, called MegansMenagerie, is on track for a similar performance this year: roughly $9,800 in monthly sales, through September.

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

A couple months into selling wall decor, Walsh scaled back her nursing schedule. She now works 24 to 32 hours per week at her hospital, and spends 12 to 24 hours per week on her Etsy side hustle, she says. She’s personally profited about $60,000 from the Etsy shop so far this year, nearly as much as she’ll make as a nurse, she estimates.

“I don’t have to have a full-time job because of Etsy,” says Walsh, 41. “It’s been my way to save, buy things for the family, host birthday parties. When my daughter started driving, I was able to buy her a car.”

Here’s how Walsh built her Etsy store, and how she found side hustle success after more than a decade on the platform.

Walsh first started MegansMenagerie in 2009, at suggestion of a family friend, while pursuing an associate’s degree in nursing at Ocean County College. Her first sale: a $40 crocheted cowl-neck scarf, she says.

She casually crocheted outside of class, putting her sales toward her bills and oldest daughter’s birthday parties, she says. Three years in, Walsh noticed that chevron — a zigzag “Charlie Brown” printed pattern — was growing popular among retail and Etsy sellers. She bought bulk orders from knit fabric vendors and made chevron scarves on her mother’s old Singer sewing machine.

The scarves were a hit. Walsh sewed early in the morning and late into the night to keep up with the demand while continuing school, she says.

“I lived in an apartment at the time, and I’m glad that the neighbors below were OK with me waking up super early to sew. We’re talking like 5 a.m.,” Walsh says. “I had to put rugs down because the machine was just so loud, like a metal thumping noise for hours.”

Each scarf took 30 minutes to make, far less than the four hours it took Walsh to crochet a cowl-neck one. That year, she says, she used her increased Etsy earnings to buy a then-new 2013 Dodge Journey, which had a starting MSRP of $19,990, according to Kelly Blue Book.

Demand remained high for about two years, and the shop brought in between $40,000 and $50,000 per year, Walsh says. Its momentum faded in late 2014, around the time she finished her bachelor’s degree at Thomas Edison University and had her second child.

Walsh continued crafting as a hobby — adding macrame wall decor and jewelry to her portfolio — and kept her Etsy store open as she began her nursing career. Her need to create heightened during the pandemic, she says.

She opened her first shipment of eucalyptus in March 2021, soaked the plants in glycerin to preserve their scent and color, and strung the pieces together, letting them dangle from a wooden pole meant to be hung with a nail on a wall.

That year, her Etsy shop’s annual revenue jumped to $78,400. In 2022, the shop brought in $108,300.

Over the years, MegansMenagerie has paid for another car, family vacations, student loan payments and her and her husband’s 20-year vow renewal ceremony last year, which cost about $20,000, Walsh says. Her husband, a former restaurant manager, can now be a stay-at-home dad to their three children and assist Walsh with her business’ shipping logistics, she adds.

Walsh adjusts her hours at both of her jobs around her kids’ schedules, she says. Whenever she starts feeling overworked, she cuts something back. On top of her endoscopy role at her hospital, for example, she worked as a sexual assault nurse examiner for a couple of years — but stopped when her Etsy shop regained popularity.

During the last two months of 2023, at the height of the holiday season, Walsh took MegansMenagerie offline to mentally recoup, she says.

“I didn’t want to deal with the struggle of shipping deadlines and customers needed something they ordered [immediately],” says Walsh. “I’m not Amazon. You are legit getting a handmade product I made in my living room.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Walsh’s first sale from her Etsy store was a cowl-neck scarf.

Want to make extra money outside of your day job? Sign up for CNBC’s online course How to Earn Passive Income Online to learn about common passive income streams, tips to get started and real-life success stories.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

When Todd Graves looks at resumes, one trend stands out to him: the prevalence of job-hopping.

Graves, 52, is the billionaire CEO and co-founder of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, a restaurant chain with more than 800 locations across the U.S., its territories and the Middle East. His No. 1 red flag when hiring new corporate employees is a resume that shows frequent job changes every two to three years, he says.

“I question that, because it’s like, ‘Are you in it just for you?’” Graves tells CNBC Make It.

Job-hopping can make an applicant come across as someone who’s on a “quest for titles,” says Graves. Such people also tend to use language during interviews that they think the hiring manager wants to hear, rather than giving authentic answers, he notes — which you can catch by looking for inconsistencies in candidates’ responses across multiple interviews.

“When they’re more into title and control versus teamwork, it’s a huge red flag for me,” says Graves.

DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to negotiating a higher salary

When Graves conducts job interviews, he tries to gauge each candidate’s level of passion for the brand — and hires people who he thinks will be “intrinsically motivated” to work at Raising Cane’s. He says he’s noticed a “huge correlation to success” for employees when they care about what happens to their colleagues, team and organization as a whole — rather than focusing solely on their own career growth.

“That goes down to our cashiers and fry cooks in our restaurants,” says Graves.

Job-hopping has become relatively common, especially amid a tight labor market in recent years. Some career experts say the corporate stigma against job-hopping is outdated, as long as your resume doesn’t show an excessive track record of it.

But Graves isn’t alone in expressing concerns about candidates who frequently change jobs. Over a third of hiring managers surveyed by LinkedIn over the summer said they would be hesitant to pursue a candidate with a pattern of short stints in different jobs.

Hiring managers might be thinking, “if you were only there for nine months, maybe you’ll only be here for nine months,” LinkedIn career expert Drew McCaskill told Make It in August.

Career experts typically recommend against mentioning your current or former jobs unless your interviewer specifically asks you about them. The summary section on a resume or the “About” section of your LinkedIn profile may be an appropriate place to explain your career experiences, McCaskill said.

If an interviewer does ask about your career choices, you should be ready with a succinct explanation that focuses on the future and the value you can add to a new job. Talk about what you’ve gained through each of your past experiences, and how that makes you a fit for the role want now, said McCaskill.

Don’t give hiring managers a reason to think you’ve done anything wrong, McCaskill said: “Don’t make apologies for it.”

Want to earn more money at work? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Negotiate a Higher Salary. Expert instructors will teach you the skills you need to get a bigger paycheck, including how to prepare and build your confidence, what to do and say, and how to craft a counteroffer. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 50% off through November 26, 2024.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

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.

A little over a year into running her cleaning business, Cool Aunt Cleaners, Anna-Marie Ortiz has learned a lot about the resilience and adaptability needed to succeed as a small business owner. 

When she’s not cleaning apartments with a portable vacuum strapped to her back, the 30-year-old is managing fluctuating revenue, controlling operational costs and making tough decisions — like downsizing her team — to keep her Portland, Oregon-based business running.

“In the beginning, I had no idea how it was going to go,” she tells CNBC Make It. “But you keep going because you believe in what you’re building.” 

Ortiz started the business in July 2023 with her last $2,000 in savings. Since then, she’s grown it from a part-time side hustle into a business that’s projected to earn over $100,000 in revenue in 2024. She currently pays herself a salary of about $29,000 per year.

While she’s faced setbacks and had to adjust her operations, Ortiz remains committed to growing her business. “Looking back on the past year, it hasn’t been easy, but it’s been worth it, knowing that we’re heading in the right direction,” she says.

Ortiz grew up in Wichita, Kansas, with four sisters, raised by young parents who divorced when she was 3. Her mother later married her stepfather, who ran a flooring business that, though eventually successful, faced financial struggles in its early years.

“Growing up, money was definitely tight,” says Ortiz. “I’ve been poor my whole life.”

The family lived paycheck to paycheck, stretching every dollar to cover essentials and often relying on thrifted items and hand-me-downs to make ends meet.

When Ortiz was in fourth grade, the family moved from Wichita to an 80-acre farm near Kingman, Kansas. The shift to rural life brought a period of social isolation, as she left behind her friends and found herself as one of the few people of color living near a predominantly white “cow town,” she says.

On the farm, she had a long list of chores, whether it was cleaning, pulling weeds or driving the tractor. On weekends, she often helped her stepfather with his flooring business, laying baseboards and doing other related tasks.

“I was raised in a very strict household, for sure,” Ortiz says. “I resented that like any teenager would, but looking back at it now, I feel like it had a lot to do with the person that I am today.”

In 2012, Ortiz graduated from high school and attended Butler Community College near Wichita on a track scholarship to study business. 

However, she was uncertain about her career path at the time and decided college “was a really expensive way to figure that out.” She dropped out after one year.

Ortiz then worked various odd jobs in Lawrence, Kansas, including as a server at a café. One of her regular customers, a fintech startup founder, invited her to join him on a project.

“Startups are risky businesses, it’s like taking a chance of a lottery ticket every day,” she says. “But I was in my early 20s, what else do I have going on?”

Over the next few years, Ortiz worked with the founder on a series of projects that ultimately “fizzled out,” but in the process, she gained an “untraditional four-year degree in business,” building skills in sales, marketing and project management.

Tired of the uncertainty that came with startup projects, Ortiz returned to Wichita and briefly re-enrolled in college in 2018 and 2019. But it didn’t last: “I was pretty miserable at school, and I was like, ‘What is the end goal?’ I don’t see myself working for anyone.”

In 2020, Ortiz decided to open a plant shop with a high school friend. Unfortunately, the shop launched just before the Covid-19 pandemic, and despite a pivot to online sales, it struggled to turn a profit and closed in early 2021.

Despite the failure, running the shop gave Ortiz lasting insights she was able to apply to her cleaning business. She also realized through the partnership “that I had selfish tendencies, I had my vision and I wanted things done my way.”

After going through a difficult breakup and the closure of her shop, Ortiz realized she needed a change in her life. In September 2022, she moved to Portland, where she was able to continue working remotely for her fintech startup job.

“I wanted a fresh new start, where I could move to a city where no one knew my name and build something from the ground up,” she says.

This pushed her to seriously pursue a side hustle, and after some research, she decided to open a cleaning service in July 2023. Unlike her retail shop, cleaning offered low startup costs, had no inventory to manage and was something she could handle on her own. Ortiz also figured she could stand out in the space by applying her tech and advertising skills to an industry mostly run by small “mom and pop shops.”

With the last of her $2,000 in cash savings, Ortiz paid for supplies, a website, a professionally designed logo and registered her business as a limited liability company.

She saw an opportunity to target the many young professionals living in smaller condos and chose the name Cool Aunt Cleaners to appeal to younger clients. “A cool aunt is someone who looks out for their nieces, nephews and friends — and if they find weed under your bed, they’re not going to tell your mom or something,” she says.

To drum up business, Ortiz put up flyers and handed out business cards in targeted neighborhoods. By avoiding online advertising, she also kept her costs low.

Things started off slow, with the company bringing in just $2,595 in its first month. But Ortiz kept at it and decided to focus on Cool Aunt Cleaners full time starting in November 2023.

Cool Aunt Cleaners primarily offers residential cleaning, move-out cleans and turnovers for short-term rental properties. 

Figuring out pricing was tricky at first: “I quickly learned that just because you’re in a higher income neighborhood or a bigger house, that doesn’t mean that you’re making more money,” Ortiz says. “It actually means that you’re making less money.”

Despite bringing in less than $5,000 a month at the beginning, the business has brought in an average of around $10,000 per month throughout 2024. It’s on track to earn over $100,000 in revenue by the end of the year.

In the early days, Ortiz quickly expanded her team, employing up to four cleaners so that she could focus on managing the business. However, between flat-rate pricing for clients and hourly pay for employees, her costs began to add up when jobs ran long. Ensuring that each cleaning was done right also added unexpected labor expenses.

Ortiz decided to scale back her team to the point where she was running the business solo for a time.

After recalibrating, she hired a part-time worker in August using a new pay structure, and plans to continue expanding when she can book more cleanings.

Currently, company has about 15 to 20 recurring clients, and Ortiz and her employee handle up to 10 cleanings per week. Ortiz doesn’t go on every job, assisting on about two to three cleanings a week.

The business is small, but profitable. After expenses, the largest of which is payroll for her employee, Ortiz pays herself about $29,000 a year.

Though she takes home less than the $60,000 she earned at her previous job, Ortiz prefers the freedom and flexibility of running her own business over a traditional 9-to-5. She’s hopeful that, in time, the financial payoff will reflect her hard work as she grows the business.

Here’s how Ortiz spent her money in August 2024.

• Credit card repayment: $4,537
• Housing: $1,350 for her share of rent
• Transportation: $380 for car payment, gas and Uber ride
• Discretionary: $205 for pet expenses and clothes
• Phone: $100
• Dining out: $77
• Subscriptions and memberships: $63 for her gym membership, Amazon Prime, Spotify and Apple storage

After relocating to Portland, Ortiz faced unexpected expenses that led to $14,000 in credit card debt. In August, she used money she’d saved over the summer to make a significant payment on it, bringing her total credit card debt down to around $5,000.

“Moving out to the West Coast for the first time, this is the most I’ve ever spent on rent, gas, eggs — everything,” she says. “It’s insane out here.”

Her only other debt is an outstanding student loan balance of about $10,000, currently in forbearance, so payments are paused. She plans to hold off on payments until her lender starts “knocking at my door.”

In August, Ortiz paid $1,350 toward rent on an apartment she shared with her now ex-boyfriend. The couple split costs while living together, with her ex covering the remainder of the $3,500 total rent, utilities and some groceries.

Otherwise, Ortiz keeps her expenses minimal, rarely spending on entertainment or travel. She doesn’t have health insurance, and deducts her car insurance as a business expense.

“I don’t feel good when I spend money,” she says. “I feel really good when I earn money and when I save money.” 

Ortiz has ambitious plans to expand Cool Aunt Cleaners beyond Portland and turn it into a “seven-figure business.”

To reach this goal, she plans to use digital ads for the first time, streamline client onboarding with new software and hire at least six more employees by the end of 2025 — setting the stage for expansion into other cities.

And despite the challenges of growing a small business, she values the independence and purpose that comes with it. 

“I love being my own boss,” she says. “It allows me the flexibility to make my own decisions and create a work environment that reflects my values.”

Having grown up in a family that often struggled financially, Ortiz is determined to achieve self-reliance through financial independence.

“I want to be the person in my family that creates generational wealth and leaves behind a legacy,” she says.

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

Want to earn more money at work? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Negotiate a Higher Salary. Expert instructors will teach you the skills you need to get a bigger paycheck, including how to prepare and build your confidence, what to do and say, and how to craft a counteroffer. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 50% off through November 26, 2024.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

To feel good in your body, it’s important to engage in regular physical activity and to stretch often.

Darcie Pervier, a physical therapist and women’s health coach, stretches and exercises every day, and CNBC Make It asked her to share the movements that she does to feel her best.

“My end goal for all stretches is to take an assessment of where there might be some imbalances in my body and where movement might be missing,” Pervier says. “For me, given my line of work, bending over people all day, sitting at a desk, documenting, it’s really important to keep an eye on my spinal mobility.”

For women specifically, maintaining mobility in the spine and lower back “is really important, because one in two of us will break a hip at some point in our lives, and we really need to keep our balance, so the more we are able to keep rotation, the better off we will be.”

Here are four movements that Pervier makes sure to keep in her daily fitness routine.

1. Cat-cow stretches

“I do cat-cows daily,” Pervier says. The stretch involves placing your hands and knees on the ground, and curving your spine inward, then rounding your spine upward.

“The reason that I do those are because it allows me to feel each segment of my spine, so I can really work on keeping mobility.”

You can do this stretch variation at your own pace and for as long as you’d like, but Pervier finds that moving slowly allows you to get a full range of motion.

“I love spinal flexibility because we need it for so many things. We need it to maintain balance. We need it to maintain core strength and to have great breath [control],” she says.

2. Child’s pose

Pervier’s daily routine also includes child’s pose with side reaches to get “deep hip flexion.” To do child’s pose, you start by kneeling then reaching forward as you bring your head to the ground.

“It allows [you], when you reach to the side, to really focus your breath into the rib cage to get full rib expansion, which is really important for organ motility, getting things moving inside your body, which is important for long-term health,” she says.

3. Lower trunk rotations

Doing lower trunk rotations each day allows Pervier to “get that side body stretch in, [and] to feel if there are any differences in my mobility.”

Lower trunk rotations involve laying on the ground with your knees bent and rotating your lower body from side to side.

“Everybody can probably use a little bit of back extension in their life, unless they have a back condition,” Pervier says.

“But we are all bent over, whether it’s over a computer or over patients or construction workers being bent over all day, so we’re in a flex position, and we could all use a little bit of experience in the opposite direction.”

4. Squats

When it comes to Pervier’s workout routine, she switches up the exercises that she does depending on the day. Yet, one movement finds its way into all of her workouts.

“The thing that I don’t ever omit are squats,” she says. “I think the one exercise everybody should be including is squats.”

When squatting, it’s important to have your feet shoulder-width apart and lower your body as if you’re sitting in a seat. Make sure you’re engaging your core, keeping your feet planted and your chest up.

“A lot of times people think they’re doing their squat most effectively, but they’re using just their quads, and maybe that’s their intention,” Pervier says. “But we also want to make sure we’re getting the back muscles, the glutes and the hamstrings.”

Want to earn more money at work? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Negotiate a Higher Salary. Expert instructors will teach you the skills you need to get a bigger paycheck, including how to prepare and build your confidence, what to do and say, and how to craft a counteroffer. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 50% off through November 26, 2024.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.