The Internal Revenue Service is sending up to $1,400 to around 1 million tax filers who qualified for Covid-19 stimulus checks in 2021, but didn’t claim them.

In an unusual move, the IRS is proactively issuing payments to taxpayers who missed claiming the Recovery Rebate Credit, a tax credit that allows people to receive the Economic Impact Payments — also known as stimulus checks — they missed in 2021. Originally designed as a self-claimed credit, the agency is now ensuring eligible taxpayers receive the payments they are entitled to.

“Looking at our internal data, we realized that one million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a press release. “To minimize headaches and get this money to eligible taxpayers, we’re making these payments automatic, meaning these people will not be required to go through the extensive process of filing an amended return to receive it.”

If you haven’t filed a 2021 tax return yet, you can still qualify for the credit — but you must do so by April 15, 2025, according to the IRS.

The stimulus check, part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, was the final payment issued to provide financial relief during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Known as the Recovery Rebate Credit when claimed through a tax return, it provides up to $1,400 per person, with the exact amount dependent on adjusted gross income and phased out at higher income levels:

• Single filers: You qualify for the full $1,400 if your AGI in 2021 was $75,000 or less. The credit begins to decrease for incomes over $75,000 and is fully phased out at $80,000.
• Married filing jointly: You qualify for the full $2,800 (for two people) if your combined AGI in 2021 was $150,000 or less. The credit begins to decrease for combined incomes over $150,000 and is fully phased out at $160,000.
• Dependents: Families can receive $1,400 for each dependent in 2021, regardless of age, but the amount is subject to the same income phaseout limits as the primary filer.

The IRS will automatically send payments to taxpayers who qualify, including those who filed tax returns with blank or $0 entries for the Recovery Rebate Credit data field, but were still eligible for the credit.

No action is needed for eligible taxpayers to receive these payments unless you haven’t yet filed a 2021 tax return.

Payments are being sent now and should arrive in “most cases” by late January 2025, according to the IRS. Payments will be automatically deposited using the banking information listed on the taxpayer’s 2023 tax return or sent by paper check. Eligible taxpayers should also receive a separate letter notifying them of the payment.

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.

As the U.S. continues to face a shortage of available homes, some may be looking at those occupied by “empty nesters” as an incoming source of inventory. As older residents begin to downsize, the thinking goes, the millions of homes they currently own will fill the deficit, thus bringing housing costs down. 

However, those units aren’t likely to be the solution, Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, tells CNBC Make It. 

The reason is simple: Empty nesters — which Zillow defines as “residents ages 55 or older who have lived in the same home for 10 or more years, have no children at home and have at least two extra bedrooms” — don’t live in the same places where younger generations want to be, recent research finds.

“These empty-nest households are concentrated in more affordable markets, where housing is already more accessible — not in the expensive coastal job centers where young workers are moving and where more homes are most desperately needed,” Divounguy said in the report.

Around 20.9 million households fit the definition of empty nesters in 2022 and out of the 50 biggest U.S. cities, they have the greatest concentrations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; and Cleveland, Ohio. But the cities with the most people under 44 are San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado, Zillow reports.

“Unless we see more businesses and workers relocating to the Midwest, the big flow of housing coming is probably not going to do much to help those markets,” Divounguy says.

And of course, the homes empty nesters are vacating might not be the same properties young people are looking for, especially if they are large or relatively expensive for the area.

So, what will actually move the needle? The “only viable solution for improving housing affordability” is new construction in the cities facing the largest shortages, Divounguy says. 

However, there are a number of roadblocks preventing construction from keeping up with demand, including the rising costs of building materials, lot size requirements, density restrictions and project reviews that can take up to 24 months. 

“When you prevent supply from keeping up with demand, you end up with runaway prices and affordability deteriorates,” Divounguy says.

Lowering costs for builders will be key to making progress in this area, Divounguy says. Changes to zoning laws and streamlining building permit approvals may also help push things in the right direction.

“If you look at places that are less regulated,” he added, “like in the South, builders have been able to lean into density in order to continue building houses at a price point that meets buyers where they’re at.”

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.

These days, the American Dream for many people is leaving the United States.

With its high cost of living, political tensions and often exhausting hustle culture, there are numerous reasons Americans seek a different lifestyle in another country. They may want to see their money go further or crave a more relaxed culture. 

Regardless of their reasons, many of the Americans living abroad interviewed by CNBC Make It report increased life satisfaction and little desire to return to the States.

Here’s why four Americans who have settled abroad don’t plan on coming back for some time. 

For Cara West, her daughter’s safety was a major factor in choosing to relocate to another country. West and her family lived in Austin, Texas, in 2022 when the deadly mass shooting occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

“There were so many things that started to come to light after becoming a mother in the U.S. that made me truly understand that the U.S. does not really support families and mothers and children,” she told CNBC Make It earlier this year.

The 33-year-old luxury travel concierge and content creator first brought her family to Portugal in January 2023 to give living abroad a three-month trial. The slower pace of life in Europe had an immediate impact.

″[My husband] saw how happy I was, how much of a glow I had, how much time we were spending with each other and as a family,” West said.

From Portugal, they returned to the U.S. and started planning and packing up their life in Texas. By July of 2023, when the lease on their apartment ended, West and her husband were ready to begin living as digital nomads. After nearly a year of roaming around, they settled in Syros, Greece, in June 2024.

“In the United States, it’s all about hustle culture and your worth is tied into your productivity,” West said. “But here in Greece … rest is really valued.”

She and her family have also enjoyed the ease of traveling around the rest of Greece from their home on the island of Syros. 

“It’s really easy to get around the country. You can take the ferries, you can take flights,” West says. “Overall, our life is just so much more fulfilling here in Greece.”

West is excited to grow her family and give her daughter a global education through homeschooling and continuing to travel.

“Just being able to see the world, to meet new people, to experience a new language, cultures, traditions — it’s just so special and something that we aren’t really exposed to enough in the United States,” she said.

Steven Guo first became an entrepreneur as a preteen hosting Minecraft servers. Since then, he’s continued to build successful businesses. Now in his early 20s, he’s founded several e-commerce brands on track to bring in nearly $2 million in combined revenue this year.

Despite that financial success — which earned Guo a salary of over $250,000 this year — he chose to move to Bali, Indonesia, where it costs a “fraction” of what he was previously paying to live in Southern California.

“I’m definitely much happier in Bali because of how great the lifestyle is,” Guo previously told Make It. “Bali really is a place where my work-life balance finally makes sense.”

Guo spends his mornings working and typically goes surfing or explores the outdoors in the afternoons. He splits a four-bedroom Airbnb in Canggu, a resort village on the southern coast with ideal surfing conditions.

“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,” Guo said.

Though he makes a decent living, Guo knows how success can change quickly for a business. He lives frugally to help ensure he can navigate any challenges or setbacks, which he’s able to do without skimping on quality in Bali.

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

At first, Iceland seemed like a wild card for native New Yorker Jewells Chambers. But after living there for more than eight years, she now earns a living sharing the country with her thousands of podcast and YouTube subscribers.

“It felt as if there was something magnetic that has been pulling me in this direction, and I still haven’t been able to put my finger on it exactly,” Chambers said of her move to Iceland. “I know it has something to do with the nature, because that has been and continues to be such a rejuvenating piece for me.”

Chambers was inspired to move abroad when she was in high school in Brooklyn.

“While the professor was talking about U.S. economics and politics, something in my brain was just like, ‘I don’t think I’m meant to live in the U.S.,’” she said.

After college, she wound up marrying an Icelandic man in 2015. He wanted to return to his home country and Chambers got on board after she landed a job with an Icelandic tourism company. The couple moved to Iceland in 2016.

To do her job as a marketer better, Chambers started trying some of the unique outdoor adventures Iceland has to offer. Her “life changed,” she said. “Everything became about nature and understanding, respecting and then being able to market that out to our potential customers. And I loved it.”

Chambers started her own podcast, All Things Iceland, in 2018 as a way to share her experiences and answer questions her friends and family had about her expat journey. In August 2020, she left her day job to focus on All Things Iceland full time. 

She and her husband divorced in 2023, but her business has continued to grow and allowed her to live well in Iceland while taking full advantage of the country’s natural beauty and financial advantages. She doesn’t pay any health insurance premiums, for example.

“When I made that decision and stepped my foot down that day when I came to the country full time, it just felt right and it has continued to feel that way,” Chambers said. “So for the foreseeable future, Iceland is my home.”

Valerie Valcourt had it made, by some standards, earning over $100,000 a year working in tech in Seattle. But “the paycheck wasn’t worth the detriment to my mental health,” she previously told CNBC Make It.

Valcourt decided to fulfill a childhood dream of attending pastry school in France, where she now lives. She initially applied and was going to start her pastry chef training in 2021, but she didn’t feel financially prepared at the time. 

When she finally moved to France in 2022, she planned to stay for just seven months. But her internship was extended and she landed a full-time job in November 2023. She’s now planning on staying in France for the foreseeable future, she said earlier this year.

“I’m happier here than in the U.S. It’s been lovely,” Valcourt said. ″I love being able to travel, the accessibility to nature, discovering new parts of the country. It’s been so much fun. And of course, all of the pastries.”

She’s making a fraction of the six-figure salary she earned working in tech, now earning about $30,000 a year in France. But Valcourt pays considerably less in rent and says fresh, quality food is affordable in the French countryside.

Additionally, Valcourt appreciates the French lifestyle, which feels more relaxing than the American hustle culture that burned her out. “The French culture is like, when it’s time to rest, it’s time to rest, and also have a glass of wine every now and then,” she said.

Still, she expects to return to the U.S. eventually.

“My family and friends are there, and I miss them more than I can say,” she said. “And it feels important to one day go back to my roots and bring what I’ve learned from France to the U.S.”

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.

In 1989, Billy and Akaisha Kaderli decided they wanted to — and could afford to — retire early. 

“We were both working our asses off,” Billy tells CNBC Make It, and they realized they didn’t want to keep going that way until they reached a “normal” retirement age or couldn’t physically work anymore.

Billy was a trained French chef and the couple owned a restaurant in Santa Cruz, California. Around 1985, Billy had burnt out on cooking commercially and was recruited to work in investment banking — “one of the easiest jobs I ever did,” he says.

After making some decent money and investing on their own, the couple took a look at their finances and estimated how much they would need to fully retire.

“We were heavily investing as much as we could, tracking our spending to find out what we were spending on ourselves … and we realized we had enough at that time,” Billy says.

They took two more years to plan before actually retiring in 1991, when they were both 38, and had $500,000 invested. Adjusted for inflation, that principal would be worth nearly $1.2 million today.

This was before the FIRE movement — which is short for financial independence, retire early — hit the mainstream. Today, there are numerous online blogs, resources and communities dedicated to FIRE. But in 1991, the internet itself was still in its early stages.

“We had so much going on with obligations — work, bills and competition in California in terms of homes and cars and vacations and stuff. We wanted to do something different,” Akaisha says. “We were very freedom-oriented people.”

For over three decades now, the Kaderlis have been enjoying their retirement, traveling around the world and documenting their experiences on their blog.

They’ve weathered major market shake-ups like the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic without ever regretting their decision to stop working. Here’s how they know early retirement was the best path for their lives.

There’s a common misconception that retirement is just sitting around — and that it can get boring, Akaisha says.

That’s part of the reason why the Kaderlis prefer to call themselves “financially independent,” rather than “early retirees.” They didn’t just want a break from the physical toll of working, they wanted the freedom to choose how they spend their time.

So far, that’s been true of their experience. “You can pick what you want to do — you can teach children or teach the blind, or travel the world or work wherever you want to work, because you own your time,” Akaisha says. “You own your life.”

“Once you become financially independent, you do what the hell you want,” Billy adds.

In retirement, the Kaderlis have traveled all over the world learning about new cultures, meeting fellow travelers and locals, trying new foods and activities, and writing about their journey in books and on their blog.

“It’s a lifestyle, not a vacation,” Billy says. “We like to settle down into an area and learn about the people and the shopping and the foods in that area, and get to make friends.”

The couple has lived in a variety of places over the years, including Thailand, Guatemala, Indonesia and the island of Nevis in the West Indies. They have kept a rented apartment in Chapala, Mexico, for the last seven years and return from time to time.

“We always wanted to go, go, go and try new things, eat new foods and meet new people,” says Akaisha, who studied anthropology in college. Paired with Billy’s culinary background, they stay curious and excited to encounter new places.

It hasn’t always been a walk in the park. Over the years, they’ve incurred injuries and illnesses and had to decide where they could seek the best medical treatment. Earlier this year, Akaisha was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, prompting the couple to return to Mexico for about three months while she sought treatment.

“We’ve utilized medical tourism everywhere we’ve been and we’ve had great results,” Billy says.

Overall, financial independence has allowed the couple to continually re-imagine what their own lives could look like. “It just keeps getting better,” Akaisha says. 

Their investments have continued to perform well and allow them to live out the long and happy retirement they dreamt of over 30 years ago.

“We like to be able to call the shots, go where we want to go, stay as long as we want to stay, just thinking a little out of the box,” Akaisha says. ”[Retirement has] made us more flexible, physically and mentally and emotionally. We’ve seen the world.”

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.

This year, I got in touch with several longevity experts to talk about living a long, healthy life — and to learn more about their own personal practices.

“Almost everything I recommend to my patients, I do myself,” said Dr. Frank Lipman, a doctor of functional medicine who researches longevity.

Many of Lipman’s suggestions for good health aligned with what I heard from Dr. Andrea Maier, a health and longevity expert with nearly 25 years of experience in geroscience, Valter Longo, who’s been studying longevity in Italy for about 20 years, and the popular researcher Dan Buettner.

Here’s what I learned from some of these leading experts in 2024.

1. Most longevity experts follow time-restricted eating

In my conversations with doctors and researchers who study how to live longer, almost all seemed to recommend or follow time-restricted eating — commonly known as intermittent fasting. Most tend to eat all of their meals within an eight-hour window, and fast for about 12 to 16 hours a day.

“I always skip, or very often skip, breakfast,” Maier said. “I really start eating at two o’clock [p.m.], three o’clock. Sometimes my first meal is in the evening, and I’m fine.”

Longo developed his own meal pattern called the fasting-mimicking diet. It involves eating a diet “high in unsaturated fats and low in overall calories, protein and carbohydrates,” according to the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

The diet also involves 12 hours of fasting daily, and was associated with a lower risk of developing diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart conditions in mice, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications earlier this year.

2. They have cheat meals and non-negotiables

As serious as longevity experts are about their health, they still give themselves a bit of grace. That sometimes means enjoying things that aren’t exactly the healthiest. They don’t plan on changing those behaviors.

“I’m 46, and still drinking Diet Coke,” Maier told CNBC Make It in October.

Similarly, Longo has a “big dinner, fairly late at night, and that’s probably not ideal, but [it] makes my life much easier to have no lunch,” he said. It would “probably be better to have a big lunch and a smaller dinner. [But] that’s the way my life is set up.”

Buettner, who helped coin the term “blue zones,” enjoys going out for dinner with his friends and acknowledges that it likely doesn’t align with a longevity diet.

“It’s hard to eat really healthy when you go out, no matter where you go,” Buettner said.

3. Connecting with others is really important to them

The importance of maintaining positive relationships was a common theme among longevity experts, and it mirrors what a decades-long Harvard study about happiness found about its significance for longevity.

For Lipman, spending quality time with his grandson is his current primary goal for social fitness. “When he gets older, he’s probably not going to want to spend as much time, so I’m taking advantage. He’s soon to be five, but he’s still at an age where he wants to be around his grandparents.”

And Buettner said he “overspent to buy a place where I can invite people,” over and had three guests staying at his house at the time I interviewed him.

“I have every night planned with people, and that’s when I get a lot of my social interactivity,” he said.

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.