In 2007, I made what seemed like a risky decision and dropped out of college despite owing about $50,000 in student loans. 

Fast forward to today, and I run a thriving business that generates about $18,000 a month in passive income — according to my calculations from a recent month’s deposits — while working just four hours a day.

Building passive income isn’t about finding a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s about creating valuable content and products that continue generating revenue long after the initial work is done.

Everyone starts somewhere. I began with a college dropout’s determination and a love for creating videos. My journey from there to successful entrepreneur and coach taught me valuable lessons about building sustainable passive income. 

Here are my top four tips for anyone looking to start their own passive income journey.

Many aspiring entrepreneurs get caught up in the excitement of “scaling” their business before they’ve proven a single successful business model. I fell into this trap early on after listening to many thought leaders talk about diversifying your revenue. It’s a recipe for distraction and mediocrity.

My own breakthrough came when I decided to focus entirely on one revenue stream until it worked.

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I began with a social media marketing agency and nailed that process before I started on my first passive income idea — a course. The course wouldn’t have been possible if not for the work I’d done in my agency to learn the material well enough to teach it.

I gleaned invaluable lessons about:

• What my audience truly wanted
• How to create and market digital products
• How to set the right pricing strategy
• How to automate delivery and support

Only after I had a proven, profitable system did I consider expanding into other revenue streams. This patient, methodical approach meant each new venture had a stronger foundation built on real experience and success.

So don’t rush to diversify. Take the time to work through the challenges of creating your first successful revenue stream. The skills and insights you gain will make you much better at launching and growing any future income streams.

My best business decisions came from listening to my audience. When my community repeatedly asked for a book about video content strategy, I wrote the book “Vlog Like a Boss.” When readers wanted more morning routine guidance, I created “Good Morning, Good Life.”

These products weren’t just random ideas — they were direct responses to market demand. “Good Morning, Good Life” later inspired a paper planner, which added another significant revenue stream to my business.

Your audience will tell you what they want to buy. Your job is to listen and deliver.

The secret to working only four hours a day isn’t working less — it’s working smart. Each video I create takes about two hours total: one hour for preparation and one hour for filming. But once published, it continues earning indefinitely.

I’ve created more than 1,000 videos about productivity and brand-building. While that sounds overwhelming, it’s the result of consistent, systematic content creation over time. Each piece of content serves as a building block in my passive income architecture.

For example, one video I made last year is called “How To Plan a Productive September (That You Actually Look Forward To!)” It has brought in more than $1,100 in ad revenue to date, and it also promotes one of my most successful, high-profit-margin passive income products, the “Good Morning, Good Life” digital planner. 

This video continues to drive sales and ad revenue more than a year after publication. It’s not just content — it’s a systematic sales engine.

Despite dropping out of college, I never stopped learning. Every stage of my business required new skills:

• Video editing for YouTube
• Writing for books
• Product development for planners
• The ability to stay motivated for persevering through it all

While you can learn many things through trial and error, getting guidance from smart people can accelerate your progress significantly. That’s why I invest in myself and hire coaches in my life and for my business that continue to make me better. 

Coaching my own clients in turn is one of the most fulfilling things I do. I love showing people how to skip all the mistakes I made and go straight for the blueprint that builds a business they love.

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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While some athletes celebrate their first big paycheck with a splurge — NFL star Travis Kelce dropped $10,000 on a limited-edition pair of sneakers, Shaquille O’Neal spent $150,000 on a Mercedes Benz — WNBA star Cameron Brink hasn’t touched hers.

The second-overall pick of the 2024 WNBA Draft — behind only Caitlin Clark — earned $76,535 her rookie season and will be paid $78,066 by the Los Angeles Sparks next year. 

Brinks says she’s saved about 90% of her total earnings from her first year in the league, adding that the WNBA isn’t the principal driver of her income. The forward says that her career as a professional athlete has made her more marketable and helped her land lucrative endorsement deals.

“I’m really thinking about my financial future,” the 22-year-old told CNBC Make It an email. “I want to ensure that I’m setting myself up for a comfortable lifestyle down the line because I definitely don’t want to be working forever.”

Brink, who in college signed an endorsement deal with New Balance to become the brand’s first female basketball player, had an NIL valuation topping $200,000 while at Stanford University, Sports Illustrated reports.

In a league where player salaries are still as low as they are, such sponsorships can make all the difference. The highest-paid athletes in the WNBA earn close to $250,000 a year, while one brand deal can bring in anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000, Taylor Burner, a former agent for the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA), told Vogue Business last year. 

By contrast, the NBA’s salary leader Steph Curry, earned $51.9 million from the Golden State Warriors last year and will make $55.7 million this upcoming season before factoring in deals with brands like Under Armour and Chase.

Even though Brink’s rookie season was cut short after suffering a torn ACL in June, that hasn’t stopped the deals from rolling in. This week, alone, she signed a multi-year deal with the makeup brand Urban Decay and announced that she would be featured in the 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

She’s also partnered with SoFi to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act which, in 1974, made it illegal for financial institutions to deny loans or other products to customers on the basis of their gender, marital status, race or other identifier. 

As she recovers from her injury, Brink is focused on keeping her “spending in check” and “saving as much as possible.” 

That includes setting funds aside for her upcoming wedding and honeymoon, she adds. Brink got engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Ben Felter, in September. 

Although interest in the WNBA has skyrocketed as of late, this rising popularity has yet to fully reach players’ wallets. 

Angel Reese, the Chicago Sky’s All-Star rookie, has said that her $73,439 salary isn’t anywhere close to enough to help her make ends meet.

“I just hope y’all know the WNBA don’t pay my bills at all,” the 22-year-old said during a recent Instagram live, according to ESPN. “I don’t even think that pays one of my bills.”

In May, Reese told ESPN that her primary income came from her numerous endorsement deals, describing her WNBA earnings as “a bonus.”

“Being able to play for what, four to five months, and get $75,000 on top of the other endorsements that I’m doing, I think it’s a plus for me,” she said at the time. 

Brink says playing in the WNBA is “the greatest job ever,” regardless of her salary.

“I get to do what I love for a living, I get to work out, play basketball every day and receive compensation for it,” Brink says. “I just wish people understood how much work goes unseen. It takes an incredible amount of work, physically and mentally, to be in the best shape and position possible going into each season. I wouldn’t change it for anything, but it takes a lot of work to get there.”

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Housing costs are the biggest expense most people face, so knowing how much you can afford to spend can be key to staying on top of your budget. However, that amount is not always clear.

As a rule of thumb, financial planners commonly recommend spending no more than 30% of your gross income on housing, whether that’s mortgage or rent costs. This advice is often based on guidelines set in the 1980s by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which defined spending beyond 30% as “housing cost burdened.”

That means if you earn the U.S. median income of around $80,000, you should aim to keep your housing costs to $2,000 a month.

But with housing costs soaring over the past few years, a significant portion of Americans now spend more than 30% of their income on housing, including nearly half of all renters, according to a recently published U.S. Census report. Among homeowners, 21.1% of those with a mortgage and 11.5% without a mortgage exceed this threshold.

Considering that Americans are routinely spending more than 30% of their income on housing, the guideline can feel more like an ideal than a realistic rule of thumb.

Here’s a look at how much you can afford to spend on housing at different income levels if you’re aiming to stay within a 30%, 40% or 50% threshold.

The maximum amount you can put toward monthly housing costs without spending more than 30% of your gross income:

• $30,000 income: $750
• $40,000 income: $1,000
• $50,000 income: $1,250
• $60,000 income: $1,500
• $70,000 income: $1,750
• $80,000 income: $2,000
• $90,000 income: $2,250
• $100,000 income: $2,500
• $110,000 income: $2,750
• $120,000 income: $3,000

The maximum amount you can put toward monthly housing costs without spending more than 40% of your gross income:

• $30,000 income: $1,000
• $40,000 income: $1,333
• $50,000 income: $1,667
• $60,000 income: $2,000
• $70,000 income: $2,333
• $80,000 income: $2,667
• $90,000 income: $3,000
• $100,000 income: $3,333
• $110,000 income: $3,667
• $120,000 income: $4,000

The maximum amount you can put toward monthly housing costs without spending more than 50% of your gross income:

• $30,000 income: $1,250
• $40,000 income: $1,667
• $50,000 income: $2,083
• $60,000 income: $2,500
• $70,000 income: $2,917
• $80,000 income: $3,333
• $90,000 income: $3,750
• $100,000 income: $4,167
• $110,000 income: $4,583
• $120,000 income: $5,000

While the 30% rule is still a useful guideline, it’s not always practical — especially in urban areas where housing costs are often higher, says Melissa Caro, certified financial planner and founder of My Retirement Network.

For many, “flexibility is necessary,” but spending more on housing should still be done carefully, she says. That’s because other parts of a household budget, such as discretionary spending on things like entertainment, have some built-in flexibility, while housing costs do not.

“Rent or mortgage payments won’t adjust if you face a job loss, so carefully weigh what’s essential versus what’s ideal,” Caro says.

That said, spending 50% or more of your income on housing is a “red line” to avoid since it limits your financial flexibility, Caro says.

Other experts recommend sticking closer to 30%, if you can.

“The 30% rule is still a good starting point for housing costs,” says Emmanuel Eliason, a CFP in Colorado. However, in places with high housing costs “something in the range of 35% to 39% could be ideal for most families if they take proactive steps to revert back to the standard 30% housing budget allocation over time.”

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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.

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.

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. Register now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 50% off through Nov. 26, 2024.

For anyone who finds investment markets daunting, especially younger millennials and Gen Zers, Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman has a three-word piece of advice: Learn by doing.

It’s her most important money advice for all investing newcomers — including her own children, Friedman told CNBC Make It on Tuesday while speaking at the Fortune Global Forum 2024.

“Learn by doing — with small amounts of money, or even on platforms where you don’t actually have to use real money,” said Friedman. “As you get more engaged and more educated, you can start to take more risks … and then get more confidence.”

Friedman has two sons in their mid-to-late twenties, she said — one of whom took it upon himself to play around with a stock event marketplace app, which lets users track and trade stocks from their phones. He only invests in small increments, roughly $10 at a time, Friedman added.

“He was taking different sides of the trade all night long on, like, what the temperature of New York was going to be overnight,” she said. “It was just fascinating … He didn’t even realize he was learning market structure.”

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Young people across the country are hesitant with their money right now: 42% of people aged 18 to 34 aren’t saving or investing at all, according to a recent CNBC and Generation Lab survey of more than 1,000 Americans. Thirty-two percent of Gen Zers say their fear of losing money holds them back, and 22% say they don’t trust the market, found Investopedia’s 2022 Financial Literacy Survey.

Experimenting with pocket money is a great place to start, because it helps you learn and get comfortable with the fact that your investment strategies can result in both wins and losses, said Friedman: “You have to be ready for any outcome.”

As you get your footing, you can start thinking about long-term investments that’ll impact your future, she added.

“That’s what’s going to make it so that you can afford your schools, or your children’s schools, afford a home, and afford to travel the world and experience the world,” Friedman said.

The earlier you can start investing, the better, added Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan, another panelist at the Global Forum event.

“I think the most important thing for young people to understand [is] that investing in their future is really one of the biggest decisions they can make,” said Venkatakrishnan. ’They should start young from that first paycheck, have a really long term view, and the equity markets are a really important part of that.”

Other ways to get started include investing in an employer sponsored 401(k) for retirement, which lets you contribute pre-tax dollars, or contributing to a Roth individual retirement account, certified financial planner Douglas Boneparth told Make It in August. Roth IRA contributions are taxed upfront, so withdrawals in retirement are tax-free.

Later in life, you’ll thank yourself for starting early, said Friedman: ”[Investing] is a foundational element of wealth creation in this country.”

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.

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