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.

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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.

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Austin, the state capital of Texas, can add another title to its name: best college town in the U.S., according to a recent ranking by WalletHub.

The city is home to a number of schools, including the University of Texas at Austin, which is one of the largest research universities in the U.S. and has a student population of over 51,000. The city itself is located in central Texas and home to nearly 980,000 people, with a median household income of $86,556, per the latest available U.S. Census data.

To generate its list of best college towns, WalletHub used data from a number of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to analyze 415 cities and towns of various sizes across America. Cities and towns were then ranked according to three key elements:

• Wallet friendliness: Considers factors such as a city’s housing costs, cost of higher education and share of rental units
• Social environment: Measures elements like the share of a city’s population between the ages of 18 and 35, nightlight options and number of festivals
• Academic and economic opportunities: Examines factors like the quality of higher education in the city, the earning potential of college grads and share of part-time jobs

Here are the top 10 college towns, according to WalletHub:

1. Austin, Texas — University of Texas, Austin
2. Ann Arbor, Michigan — University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
3. Orlando, Florida — University of Central Florida
4. Tampa, Florida — University of Tampa
5. Raleigh, North Carolina — North Carolina State University
6. Scottsdale, Arizona — Scottsdale Community College
7. Charlottesville, Virginia — University of Virginia
8. Tempe, Arizona — Arizona State University, Tempe
9. Gainesville, Florida — University of Florida
10. Atlanta — Georgia Institute of Technology

It’s not too surprising that cities in the southeast and southwest dominate the list. On top of warmer weather, the schools in these cities tend to have successful athletic programs that the surrounding communities rally around. Plus, the cities tend to come with a lower cost of living than larger cities like New York or Los Angeles.

Even if you’re not enrolled in a degree program, you can still reap the benefits living in a college town offers. They can be great for families and retirees too.

Universities often make many campus events open to the public, such as art shows, sporting events and lectures. Plus, college towns tend to be highly walkable, with amenities like grocery stores, community spaces and restaurants within close proximity to one another.

“Not only are college cities a special place to live and study, but they are also some of the most innovative spaces for all community members,” Frances Marie Gipson, a clinical professor at Claremont Graduate University, says in WalletHub’s study.

“This results in communities that tend to be more diverse, safe, and involve spaces that honor the individual and wholeness of belonging,” she says.

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What does a 12-year-old do with $10,000 he earned from a videogame “basically by accident”?

In Steven Guo’s case, he blew through it pretty quickly — but it kickstarted his path to becoming an entrepreneur and founding brands that have brought in millions in revenue.

It all started with a summer project when he was 12 and “super into the game Minecraft,” Guo tells CNBC Make It. “I wanted to host servers so that me and my friends could play on it. Turns out, other people decided to start playing on it as well, and because of that, someone offered me $50.”

That transaction changed everything. “I was super happy and through the moon,” Guo recalls. “I didn’t realize you could make money off the internet.”

Guo kept building his server and selling in-game perks to players. By the end of the summer, he pocketed $10,000.

The high didn’t last long. With his $10,000, Guo tried to start a game development company, “and unfortunately I failed miserably and blew basically all of my money,” he says. “But I learned a really valuable lesson, which was: marketing is extremely important for any business.”

From there, Guo says he became “obsessed” with learning about running a business and making it his career. “Ever since I made my first bit of money when I was 12 years old, I knew that I didn’t want a traditional job,” he says.

Guo, now 24, is the founder of multiple e-commerce businesses on track to bring in a combined $1.7 million this year.

He recently moved from Southern California to Bali, Indonesia, where he splits a villa with friends and spends his free time surfing. As his own boss, Guo is on track to earn roughly $254,000 this year.

Here’s how he spends his time and money.

While Guo fixated over starting businesses as a teen, he didn’t take college as seriously.

Guo studied business economics at the University of California, Irvine, where he “was more focused on my entrepreneurial endeavors, and because of that, I had a 2.7 GPA.”

In some ways, his poor grades motivated him to become a successful entrepreneur. “Because my GPA was so bad, I knew that getting a high-paying job was probably unlikely, and that pushed me to work even harder on my own businesses,” he says.

Guo graduated in 2022 and today runs several e-commerce businesses: an online retailer that sells dates (the fruit) to customers, a K-pop inspired merch store and a company that sells premium car covers with for people with luxury cars.

In 2022, he sold one of his first companies, a jewelry brand called Impulse Modern that brought in over $2 million in revenue within a year.

The brands all ladder up to his main venture, Manifest Five, a venture-capital studio where he helps grow, operate and invest in 8- to 9-figure direct-to-consumer brands across heath, beauty, automotive vehicles and more.

It’s a lot to keep track of, but Guo has learned how to maximize his time and efforts.

Early on, “I spent a lot of time running every single operation in the business, and I definitely got burnt out quite a bit,” he says.

Now, he works with a team, managing 19 employees across the U.S., Philippines, UK and India. “With online businesses, one of the greatest perks is being able to hire remotely and have the best of the best out of anywhere in the world,” he says.

Guo typically works from Monday to Friday six hours a day, or 30 hours a week, and spends roughly 40% of his time doing market research on his clients and the products and services they sell.

A change in scenery also helped him find better balance.

After graduating from college, Guo called Southern California home, but traveled to roughly 15 countries. He enjoyed being able to afford a nice lifestyle at a lower cost in many of them and, in early 2024, made the decision to move to to Bali, where he first visited after high school and has always felt “a magnetic pull.”

“Bali really is a place where my work-life balance finally makes sense,” Guo says. “Mornings are mostly for running my business, [and] afternoons are for surfing, exploring the landscapes or enjoying the vibrant culture here.”

“I’m definitely much happier in Bali because of how great the lifestyle is,” Guo says of his move, adding that he’s blown away by the quality of life he can have at a “fraction of the cost” of what it would be back in California.

“I get to spend tons of time with my friends. I also get to spend a lot of time doing the activities that I like, such as surfing,” he says.

Guo lives with two of his best friends and former college classmates, who are also entrepreneurs and share similar lifestyles.

Tourists and digital nomads have flocked to Bali in recent years, which has created overcrowding and overdevelopment concerns.

Guo acknowledges that many tourists get a bad rap for being “a little bit disrespectful to the local culture.” As longer-term digital nomads, Guo and his peers try to be aware of this and contribute to the local community and economy.

Here’s how Guo spent his money in September 2024.

• Savings and investments: $5,583 toward a Robinhood brokerage account and a Roth IRA
• Discretionary: $1,942 for shopping, gifts, travel and health expenses
• Housing and utilities: $1,691 for his share of a monthly Airbnb rental, Wi-Fi and utilities
• Food: $539 on takeout and restaurants
• Subscriptions and memberships: $430 toward his annual Amex fees, Amazon Prime, YouTube Premium, a personal assistant and a storage unit
• Insurance: $223 on health and travel insurance coverage
• Transportation: $97 on a scooter rental and taxis
• Phone: $30

Guo pays for the majority of his expenses on his credit cards using U.S. dollars, though he covers utilities and transportation in Indonesian Rupiah.

Guo’s biggest monthly expenses go toward his investment accounts. He aims to invest $60,000 per year, or $5,000 per month, in index funds, and he currently has roughly $340,000 shored up. He also contributed the maximum $7,000 to his Roth IRA this year and has over $17,000 stashed in it in total.

Guo splits a four-bedroom, four-bathroom Airbnb with friends in the heart of Canggu, a resort village on the south coast of Bali known for its ideal surfing conditions.

He spent just over $500 on food for the month of September. He rarely cooks and instead prefers to dine out with friends at nice restaurants or local “warungs,” which are small family-run shops.

The expense is well worth it for high-quality food, Guo says: “One of the best parts about Bali is how clean and healthy the food is. When you eat it, you feel healthier, and it just makes you feel better overall.”

The rest of his monthly expenses typically go toward travel. In September, he went on a trip to Portugal and booked future travel to Australia in December. He also paid for a few subscriptions, a personal assistant, health insurance and a scooter that acts as his main mode of transportation.

Guo says being an entrepreneur has made him aware of just how unstable business can be, so he lives frugally to make sure he can weather any ups or downs.

“I typically don’t like to spend too much money on myself,” he says. “Most of my expenses go towards food, but if I do spend money, it’s typically towards gifts for family or my girlfriend.”

As far as what he doesn’t spend on, “I absolutely refuse to spend money on things that depreciate in value,” like luxury goods, Guo says.

In his decade-plus of building businesses, Guo says one of his proudest accomplishments was treating his mom and her boyfriend to a fully paid vacation in Hawaii.

It was a full-circle moment to show appreciation to his mom, who raised him and taught him the value of hard work.

“When I was 7, I immigrated from China to Canada with my mom,” Guo says, “and I really got to see what it was like to grow up as an immigrant. I saw her working multiple jobs and working hard to just put food on the table.”

Seeing his mom’s efforts taught him the value of hard work and money, he says. “Because of that, I wanted to make sure that going forward, my family doesn’t have to go through hardship again. And my mom is definitely one of my biggest inspirations.” 

In recent years, Guo has gotten closer with his father, a former architect living in China who’s also getting into business. “We’re just starting to rekindle [our relationship], partly because we both are entrepreneurs now,” Guo says.

Guo has big plans for his businesses. He hopes to have a $50 million e-commerce portfolio by the time he’s 30.

“My plan to do that is by incubating a variety of businesses through working with students and mentoring them and investing in them,” he says.

As for his personal life, Guo plans to split his time between Bali and Australia, where his girlfriend lives, until she’s able to permanently relocate to Indonesia.

“Bali isn’t just a home,” Guo says. “It’s the freedom to live, work and thrive on my own terms.”  

Conversions from Indonesian Rupiah to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 IDR to .00007 USD on Sept. 30, 2024. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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The rising cost of rent is pushing people across the country to seek out cheaper areas, according to an October report from the Bank of America Institute.

The institute’s report identified the top eight cities where people are moving for lower rent based on a group of Bank of America customers who had open consumer checking, savings, credit, and/or other investment accounts for every quarter between Q4 2020 and Q3 2024.

The moving pattern was established based on the customers’ home addresses. The fixed sample size is roughly 45 million customers, according to the report.

Renters are moving from more expensive cities and towns in the West and Northeast to cheaper locations in the South and the Midwest. This trend started at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic and continues to this day.

Major metropolises like New York, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles have seen some of the biggest net outflows of residents.

“Consumers would rather pack their bags than pay a higher rent, and that can play out in two ways,” Joe Wadford, an economist at the Bank of America Institute, tells CNBC Make It. “The first is moving to a less expensive city, and then there’s a rising share of people who are saving money and playing it safe by downgrading within the same city.”

The report found that to be especially true among higher-income households, Wadford says.

“We’ve seen a decrease in new rents for higher income households moving within the same city as opposed to a small growth,” he adds. “They could have splurged during the pandemic and rented out a unit that was much bigger than they needed, so they’re downgrading right now within the same city,”

The Bank of America Institute deposit data shows that the average consumer’s rent payment increased 3.7% year-over-year in September 2024.

• Cleveland, Ohio
• Indianapolis, Ind.
• Las Vegas, Nev.
• Columbus, Ohio
• Jacksonville, Fla.
• Austin, Texas
• Phoenix, Ariz.
• Nashville, Tenn.

The state of Ohio had two cities land in the top 8 on the Bank of America Institute list. The median rent price in Ohio is $1,300, according to Zillow — $750 less than the national median of $2,050.

Cleveland has had one of the fastest rent price hikes in the U.S., increasing 7.2% since last summer.

The city is home to major sports teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cleveland Guardians, and the Cleveland Browns. It is also home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is free to the public.

Of Ohio’s largest cities, Columbus had the highest average rent at $1,559. It’s a 4.7% increase over last year and 7.7% higher than Cleveland, according to Zillow.

A July report from RentCafe found that apartments in the city grew in square footage between 2014 and 2023, about the size of a bedroom closet.

Columbus is the state’s capital and home to The Ohio State University and the iconic Ohio Stadium. It is also known as the birthplace of the Wendy’s restaurant chain.

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If you look at what President-elect Donald Trump has shared about his economic plans over the last several months, one word comes up again and again: tariffs.

President Trump has said he plans to install a blanket tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports, with additional tariffs of 60% to 100% on goods brought in from China. In the September Presidential debate, Trump characterized the plan as a way to extract money from rival nations.

A sweeping tariff policy will kill two birds with one stone, Trump says: It could find a new source of revenue for the U.S. government, which could offset losses from lowering or eliminating certain forms of income tax, while extracting money from rival governments.

“Other countries are going to, finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we’ve done for the world,” he said at the debate.

Economists, however, tend to agree that such a plan would have the effect of raising prices on everyday goods. “If President Trump raises tariffs on imported goods, it means inevitably that American consumers are going to pay more,” Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told CNBC.

Simply put, a tariff is a tax on imports, though not one paid by the exporting country. Rather, U.S. companies seeking to import goods from China, for example, would have to pay more to bring them in.

This generally serves two purposes. One is to protect certain domestic industries. By making it more expensive to import a product, the U.S. government effectively prevents foreign firms from undercutting the prices of American companies.

The other is to generate revenue for the U.S. government. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates that a 10% universal tariff would raise $2 trillion in revenue for the federal government from 2025 through 2034, and a 20% tariff would raise $3.3 trillion.

That’s quite a bit of money in raw terms, but not enough to cover the revenue shortfall that would result from making the tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, the Tax Foundation found.

Trump has floated the idea that a tariff policy could eventually replace U.S. federal income tax altogether, a convention that the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics called “literally impossible.”

A side effect of imposing tariffs — and what Trump’s opponents focused on during his presidential campaign — is that importing companies that pay the tax tend to pass the cost along.

“Ultimately, the cost of tariffs will be paid by us, the consumer,” says George Ball, chairman of investment management firm Sanders Morris. “They’ll be buying things at higher prices than they otherwise would.”

Exactly how much higher prices would go is hard to say. The relationship certainly isn’t as simple and direct as some Democrats have suggested by contending that tariffs would function as a “20% sales tax,” says Clark Bellin, chief investment officer at Bellwether Wealth.

“Especially when you throw the inflation we’ve been having into the mix, it’s hard to come up with a line item like, ‘This is how much things have gone up because of tariffs,’” he says.

Trump instituted a new set of tariffs on certain products in 2018 and 2019, and inflation remained moderate throughout his presidency. Those tariffs on certain imported Chinese products, including aluminum, steel, semiconductors and electric cars, have remained in place or in some cases increased during the Biden presidency.

Still, a number of organizations say Trump’s new tariff policy would have a negative effect on American consumers.

Democrats on the campaign trail insisted the policy would cost middle-class families $4,000 a year. That number is in line with estimates from the left-leaning Center for American Progress and the right-leaning American Action Forum.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics pegs the yearly cost at $2,600 per household. The Tax Foundation says a 10% universal tariff would increase taxes on U.S. households by $1,253 on average in 2025, and a 20% universal tariff would bump costs by $2,045.

Financial experts say a more aggressive tariff policy could be viewed as a form of economic saber-rattling, too. “Typically in a situation where a country is imposing a number of new tariffs, what you tend to see is a reaction from the other countries that are impacted,” says Sam Millette, director of fixed income at Commonwealth Financial Network.

“That creates a trade war. And effectively, what that does is create a situation where both impacted countries are seeing this government intervention. It tends to lead to higher prices for consumers in both countries.”

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