Tanese Orr and her husband, Robert Lashley, had lived in New York City’s public housing for over 20 years when Orr entered the city’s housing lottery.

“I applied for the homeownership aspect because I was already renting and didn’t want to leave an apartment for another apartment,” Orr tells CNBC Make It.

Since 2015, the Small Homes Rehab-NYCHA Program has facilitated the purchase, rehabilitation and sale of FHA-foreclosed homes under NYCHA’s ownership to first-time homeowners.

61 homes have been renovated and sold to low- and moderate-income families since 2015.

In November 2022, three years after signing up, Orr logged into her Housing Connect profile and saw an active lottery for houses that the city was restoring.

Less than two months later, Orr received an email request to submit a list of required documents, including pay stubs and bank account information for everyone in the household. They had just two weeks.

After submitting the application, the couple viewed two homes: a three-family house and a two-family house, both in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The average Clinton Hill, NY home value is $971,984, up 2.2% over the past year, according to Zillow.

For both of these properties, a priority was ensuring they remained affordable and accessible to former NYCHA residents.

Orr was very familiar with Clinton Hill. In the early 2000s, she worked at a Blockbuster in the area and remembers telling people back then that she would live nearby someday.

“When I first got the job I remember looking around and saying ‘I really love this neighborhood and I want to live here,’” Orr says. “At that time I had no perspective of owning anything. I was a high school dropout, a teen mom living in the projects and working at Blockbuster, making minimum wage at the time. I didn’t know how I was going to do that but I just knew it was going to happen for me. It’s surreal that I live here now.”

Orr was most interested in the three-family house at first, but the couple were outbid.

The two-family house had been gut-renovated and was made up of two units. On the second floor was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, and on the first floor was a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom apartment. The house also had a backyard and a finished basement.

For the family, it was a pretty good second option. “We loved that it had a backyard,” Orr says.

Orr and her husband took out a $691,000 mortgage with a down payment of $36,369 and $23,395 closing costs. The house itself was valued at $1.1 million and the Department of Housing Preservation covered the rest of the purchase price in the form of a second mortgage. They also received a down payment assistance loan in the amount of $15,000.

The couple secured a 30-year State of New York Mortgage Agency low-interest rate mortgage, with a 6.6% interest rate. The monthly mortgage was $4,968.36 when they closed, but has since increased to $5,275.53 a month, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“People think that we just won the lottery and we got it for free but that’s not true,” Orr says. “We still had to have a good amount saved.”

Though closing on the property took over six months, Orr says she was committed to buying the two-family house at all costs.

“While I was going through the process, they [HPD] kept asking for more documents but I didn’t care. I was going to find a way to get everything to them because I knew it would be my home,” she says.

Orr closed on the house in October and moved in November 2023. One condition of buying the house through the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development required the couple to rent out the one-bedroom apartment upstairs. They found a tenant who moved in October 2024 and pays $2,584 a month in rent.

The family has lived in the house for just over a year now, and says the biggest adjustment has been getting used to all the expenses that come with owning instead of renting, like paying for water, remembering to take out the garbage, and overall upkeep.

“We’re coming from paying $1,800 a month to now paying $5,000 a month for a mortgage. It was an adjustment,” she says.

Despite that, Orr says it’s worth it now that she and her husband are homeowners.

“The best part is saying that it’s ours and saying we did this and we were responsible enough to save and work hard for this and it’s ours,” she says. “It’s a peace of mind.”

Because of that sense of pride, Orr says she doesn’t see herself ever selling the house but does want to own another property down the line.

“I love Brooklyn, I love the neighborhood and I love that house,” she says.

Orr’s biggest piece of advice, having gone through this process with the NYC housing lottery, is to remember how vital your credit score is. “Even if you have the money, if your credit is not right, you’re going to miss out on a great opportunity.”

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Emily Hayes knew what she was signing up for when she became a lawyer.

Long hours, difficult clients and billing pressures are synonymous with the job. Yet, for Hayes, the intellectual challenge and the chance to help people made these sacrifices feel worthwhile.

What she didn’t anticipate was how quickly burnout would set in — or how much her job would overshadow other parts of her life. 

Hayes, 32, graduated from Stanford Law School in 2019. She spent the next two years working at a large international law firm in Redwood Shores, California, followed by a position as a federal district court law clerk in Portland, Oregon.

In October 2021, she joined O’Melveny & Myers, a large law firm in Los Angeles, as an associate.

After years of moving between jobs and cities, Hayes was optimistic about this new chapter in her career. 

Her colleagues were supportive, the assignments were engaging and the pay was generous. By the time she turned 30, Hayes was earning over $300,000 a year.

Yet, beneath the surface, the grind was taking a toll.

Her “breaking point” came in April 2023. Hayes found herself working overtime on a Saturday morning to prepare for an arbitration, just hours after leaving the office at 11 p.m. the night before. She was preparing for a major trial, but her stress and exhaustion had been building for months.

That morning, as she stared at her computer screen, she broke down. She recalls, “I started sobbing” because someone close to her was going through a difficult time, and she regretted being at the office instead of supporting them at home.

“It felt like I had to choose between showing up for my job in the way that was expected of me and showing up for the people I love in the way that I wanted to,” she tells CNBC Make It. “I panicked about the tension between the two.” 

Hayes adds, “Working at a law firm can make your life so unpredictable. You can never count on free time in the evenings or logging off before 10 p.m. I think you really have to love the work you’re doing to make that trade-off of your time feel worth it.”

At that moment, Hayes made a silent promise to herself — that she’d find a new job within a year.

That spring, Hayes began reaching out to former classmates and colleagues for advice. Through these conversations, she learned about a growing career path within the legal sector: product counseling.

Product counsel roles, particularly popular in Silicon Valley, involve working in-house at tech companies to provide legal and regulatory guidance on products and services. 

Unlike traditional law firm roles, product counsel positions often blend legal expertise with business strategy. “You’re a little less in the weeds with the law and much more involved in business strategy, which I’ve always been really interested in,” Hayes explains.

In October, a Stanford classmate mentioned that the tech company she worked for in San Francisco was hiring for product counsel positions.

The job came with two trade-offs: Hayes would need to relocate to San Francisco, and the base salary was about $220,000 in additional to an annual bonus, starting after her first year, of up to 15% of her total pay, depending on her performance and other company metrics.

This represented a significant pay cut from her law firm salary — about $150,000 less than her current earnings of $370,000 (comprised of $295,000 base pay and a $75,000 bonus) and $200,000 less than the $435,000 she would have earned the following year as a fifth-year associate with salary and bonus increases.

However, the role promised a more balanced lifestyle: a consistent 40-hour workweek, the flexibility to work from home two days a week, and the opportunity to advise on cutting-edge technologies like AI and cloud computing.

After careful consideration, Hayes decided the lower salary was a small price to pay for her well-being and a fresh start in an exciting new field.

She applied for the position in October 2023, received her offer letter in December, and started her new job in January 2024.

Her colleagues at O’Melveny & Myers were “really kind and supportive” of her decision, Hayes says. To facilitate a smooth transition, she created a detailed list of her ongoing cases and a suggested succession plan for her departure from the firm.

Adjusting to the six-figure pay cut was “much harder” than Hayes had anticipated. 

With her previous income, Hayes says she could “spend without much thought or stress,” whether ordering takeout several times a week or making significant payments on her student loans without worrying about having enough money left for rent.

Now, making about $150,000 less than she was a year ago, Hayes says she has had to pay closer attention to her monthly spending and saving, while also holding herself accountable to a budget. 

Last year, she started making TikToks to document her budgeting efforts and gather advice from other professionals in similar situations.

“I’m really fortunate that I still make enough to live comfortably,” says Hayes, who adds that her living expenses are slightly higher after moving from L.A. to San Francisco. “The biggest change with this pay cut,  anything, has just been shifting my mindset around money — I realized I had to think hard about my purchases even when they didn’t seem extravagant.” 

Now, as she approaches her first anniversary at the tech company (which she has chosen not to name), Hayes says she’s “really happy.”

For Hayes, the $150,000 pay cut wasn’t a sacrifice; it was an investment in her health, her relationships, and her future. In the first five years of her law career, she often struggled with sleep deprivation and stress

“I couldn’t turn my mind off,” she says. “I had trouble falling asleep at night and developed persistent jaw pain — but from the moment I quit my old job, all of those symptoms disappeared … it’s crazy.” 

The hardest part of her new gig, she says, has been figuring out how to spend her suddenly free evenings and weekends. 

“I’m spending more time with friends on weeknights, going to Pilates, picking up new hobbies, I bought a sewing machine,” she says. “Having that freedom and that balance has been priceless.” 

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Many Americans make New Year’s resolutions as the calendar winds down each year. And financial resolutions like paying down debt or saving more money are some of the most common goals people set year after year.

Depending on how you define it, you may not be able to get rich in a single calendar year. But there are steps you can take to increase your wealth, regardless of where you’re starting. 

With that in mind, here are three investing tips from self-made millionaires on how to grow your wealth in the coming year, drawn from their personal experiences.

You don’t need a complicated investment strategy to build wealth over time. In fact, sticking with a simple plan can help ensure long-term growth.

One way to do that is by investing in low-cost index funds — investment vehicles that aim to copy a market’s movement. Funds that track the S&P 500, for example, can provide diversity without needing to charge higher fees to pay a fund manager, thus eating into investor gains.

“We often believe that rich people have access to secret investments, and that’s how they make a ton of money,” self-made millionaire and money expert Ramit Sethi previously told CNBC Make It. “I have access to those investments, and I can tell you right now, they typically do not perform better than a simple S&P index fund.”

It may seem like you could get rich quicker by getting in on a hot new cryptocurrency or by putting all your money on a stock that has historically performed well. But those strategies come with huge risks — past performance does not guarantee future results and even the most seasoned investors can’t time the market.

You’re more likely to find long-term success with time-tested strategies like diversifying your investments, maintaining appropriate risk and making consistent contributions.

When it comes to building wealth, the one asset you can truly never get back is time. Starting to invest as early as you can may be the most agreed-upon financial advice out there because money pros know compound interest is one of the most powerful ways to grow your money. 

When you invest, the money you put in earns interest. Those gains are added to your principal and you earn interest on all of it — compounding your wealth over time. 

“The one thing I really wish I did more of was saving, and especially investing more aggressively,” self-made millionaire and early retiree Steve Adcock previously told CNBC Make It, reflecting on his 20s. “It’s exponential growth. The longer you invest, the more money you’ll have at retirement. Period.” 

You can take it a step further by automating your investments, like by setting up automatic contributions from your paycheck to your company’s 401(k) plan if that’s available to you. That helps you get started and build the habit of investing, Sethi said.

“My best advice for people in their 20s when it comes to money is to set up an automatic investment,” he said. “If you are in your 20s, you have an amazing opportunity, even if your earnings are not that high, to set up your habits right.”

He also recommended setting your contributions to automatically increase by 1% each year. 

“You’ve got to invest 10% of your salary every year,” Sethi said. “And at the end of the year, increase that by 1%. Do this for as long as you can and you will be a multimillionaire.” 

You don’t need to be a professional to start growing your money through investing. And while a professional financial advisor may offer valuable guidance, choosing the wrong one could hurt more than it helps.

Self-made millionaire Tess Waresmith learned that lesson the hard way.

Before becoming the financial educator she is today, she tapped a financial advisor to help her grow the savings she stacked up working on a cruise ship after a friend told her she could be making her money work for her instead of “hoarding” it.

“With stock market investing, I was really afraid to do it wrong, so I hired a financial advisor, and they made a lot of really bad decisions on my behalf,” Waresmith previously told CNBC Make It.

Had she known better, Waresmith may have looked for a fee-only advisor who takes a flat fee as payment, rather than a cut of her earnings. Plus, the advisor encouraged her to buy into an annuity that was “better suited for people in their 50s. I was 26,” she said. 

Unfortunately, this costly experience taught Waresmith to be aware of red flags when it comes to choosing a financial advisor and the products one may try to sell you. 

“It’s tough to identify red flags if you don’t have basic knowledge of investing. And when I say basic knowledge, I mean reading one or two books or taking one course,” she said. “You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in investing or be an analyst, but I didn’t really see red flags, because I wouldn’t have even been able to recognize them back then.”

If an advisor isn’t being transparent with you about where your money is going, your money isn’t growing like you think it should or you’re unsure how and how much your advisor is getting paid, those are signals you may want to work with someone else. 

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Barbara Corcoran made it a point to not raise spoiled, entitled kids, even though she’s a self-made millionaire.

“I’ve often insisted they work real jobs in the summer and sometimes after school, as I think it’s the best way to teach them independence and self-pride,” she wrote in a recent Q&A to her Patreon community, “Barbara in Your Pocket.” “I’ve also allowed my kids to fail on occasion instead of swooping in to make things easier.”

The 75-year-old “Shark Tank” star sold The Corcoran Group for $66 million in 2001 and has two kids: Tom, co-founder of real estate firm Terra Capital, and Kate, a freshman in college. As they grew up, she made sure to apply some of her own life lessons to her parenting philosophy.

“We had 10 kids in our family and we were all expected to work early to help out the family,” the New Jersey-native wrote. “We were allowed to fail and learned to recover on our own because our parents couldn’t prop us up. I got to raise two rich kids and wanted them to feel the same satisfaction and confidence I did.”

Corcoran’s son “worked a summer job making cold calls 8 hours a day,” which taught him how to weather rejection, she wrote. Her daughter worked two hours a week at a dog spa, cleaning kennels and walking peoples’ pets for $10 an hour, she said in 2018.

Kate later got a $2.50 raise, giving her a sense of pride. At the time, Kate had about $200 in the bank, which she was saving to buy a car one day.

“Getting a kid a job early on, versus another day camp or something, is more important than education in the schoolhouse, which parents are very willing to spend a ton of money on,” Corcoran said.

Teaching your children about financial literacy at a young age is a great way to set them up for success, according to parenting expert Margot Machol Bisnow, who interviewed the parents of 70 highly successful adults for her 2022 book, “Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dreams.”

“Although the parents I spoke to never pushed their kids towards pursuing a high-paying job, all of them made an effort to teach their kids about money in one form or another,” Bisnow wrote for CNBC Make It in 2022. 

In her Q&A, Corcoran offered some advice to other parents who grew up pinching pennies and are now raising kids with a lot more cash. “Don’t feel bad … about sending your kids to private school,” she wrote, or giving them access to other privileges. The most important thing is for them to appreciate what they’ve got and know that it came through hard work.

And “make sure you let them stumble a bit, and as hard as it may be,” she wrote. “Don’t swoop in with help the moment the going gets tough.”

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When I left a 20-year career as a journalist and editor to launch a brand of weighted stuffed animals, my friends and colleagues were shocked. Frankly, I was too. But I knew my career shift was the culmination of a lifelong mission.

My family arrived in Columbus, Ohio, from Russia in the 80s when I was two. Mental health was not a topic of discussion. The prevailing wisdom was: If you’re not seriously injured, no need to complain. 

So as a pre-teen grappling with anxiety and depression, I turned to magazines for information and validation. They helped me feel less alone, and it became my goal to do the same for others. I went on to cover mental health as an editor at Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, and Glamour, and as chief content officer at Thrive Global.

Behind the scenes, my racing mind and anxiety led to constant sleep issues. I tried a weighted blanket, which calmed my nerves but was too hot and bulky. What I really wanted was something smaller, like a weighted stuffed animal. 

While there were a couple on the market, I couldn’t find what I was looking for: a high-quality, beautifully designed weighted plushie that feels like a hug and is heavy enough to work for adults as well as kids. So I decided to create it myself.

What began as a quest to find a product that would calm my swirling thoughts became first a side hustle and then, in 2022, a full-time business. 

For nearly four years, on nights and weekends while I held full-time jobs, I worked to develop the product I wanted: a plushie that would feel like it’s giving you a real, comforting hug. 

I researched the science behind Deep Touch Pressure, learning that the extra weight on your body works similarly to a hug to help you relax and tamps down your fight-or-flight response.

I enlisted a team of occupational therapists, psychologists, and product designers to help optimize the product’s stress-relieving benefits. For example, we’d make them in calming colors with a sweet, neutral facial expression rather than a big smile, which the therapists told me could be perceived as judgmental or aggressive.

I commissioned an experienced toy designer I found online to work with me on my very first prototype. 

My original goal was to license the idea for Hugimals, which I did, with the help of an early mentor and licensing agent, in 2020. A few different designers then helped me iterate on my initial prototype. We tweaked the design so the Hugimal could “hug” better, and made the weighted insert removable so the plush could be machine-washed.  

After several rounds of adjustments to get the look and functionality just right, we finalized the first Hugimal, Sam the Sloth. Then we were rolling. 

Pretty soon, Sam the Sloth had a few friends: Darby the Bear, Charlie the Puppy, and Emory the Elephant, each one weighing in at 4.5 pounds, more than double the weight of others on the market. 

But there was a problem. The company I’d licensed to was bought by a media company that didn’t put out any physical products. I had to use savings to buy back, ship, and store more than 10,000 units of Hugimals inventory that had already been made while I decided what to do next.

Around the same time, I received feedback from a pilot program I’d partnered with a nonprofit to launch. We’d sent dozens of Hugimals to children’s hospitals around the country. The hospital staffers said the Hugimals had helped calm their most stressed patients within minutes, and they wanted to order more. 

I had the validation I needed, and I knew what to do. I left my full-time job and launched Hugimals World in the summer of 2022, relying on savings, freelance journalism work, and my existing inventory.

It was a leap of faith, but I had enough data to hypothesize that people like me — those seeking comfort, grounding, and relief from anxiety — would embrace this product. And I was right.

The company saw about $1.4 million in sales in our first full year and we’re on track to grow. Sam the Sloth and other Hugimals retail for $64, while our newer products range from Hug Babies wrist wraps that cost $11 to Super Sized Hug Pillows that run $88. Two and a half years in, we’ve expanded into Canada, the U.K., France, Sweden, and Denmark.

For many years, I’d been an editor fielding dozens of PR pitches a day, so I knew how to — and how not to — pitch my own brand to get media attention. I did my own launch PR, writing a personal note to all my contacts as well as editors at outlets where I didn’t know anyone at all. On my social media, I announced to everyone I knew that I was launching this business, and asked them to share.

Hugimals quickly gained traction. During our first holiday gift guide season, I was thrilled to see Hugimals featured as a TIME Best Invention of 2022 and selected for best toy and other lists compiled by Parents.com, Good Housekeeping, and Buzzfeed. Our TikTok videos of people reacting as they held Hugimals for the first time have gone viral, amassing over 22 million views to date. 

My fractional sales manager, who I’d hired at launch, helped expand our presence beyond our own website onto Amazon and into specialty toy and gift shops, hospital gift stores, The MoMA Design Store, QVC, and Uncommon Goods.

We sold most of our inventory that first holiday season on the strength of our organic press, some limited Amazon ads, and social virality. We were profitable from the start, and with our sales, and eventually some loans, I was able to buy more inventory and keep the company going.

My own Quinn the Koala is always ready to hug whenever I need to relieve stress or feel grounded. I’ve seen a huge improvement in my nighttime anxiety and insomnia. Hearing many similar stories from customers has been incredibly rewarding. 

This year, we teamed up with “SVU” actress and activist Mariska Hargitay and her Joyful Heart Foundation to launch our Heart to Hug Pillow for Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

This partnership and our work with other nonprofits — which supply Hugimals to child and teen victims of traumatic crimes and to siblings separated in foster care — make my work all the more meaningful. Our product line is growing and more partnerships are in the works.

Looking back, I realize that I’m still doing what I set out to do as a kid: helping people find comfort and support for their mental health. Only now, I’m doing it through physical products rather than words.

Marina Khidekel is the founder of Hugimals World, a TIME Best Inventions-recognized wellness brand that makes design-forward, anxiety-relieving plushies and pillows for adults and kids. Prior to launching Hugimals World, Marina was a health and wellness journalist and editor at Women’s Health, Glamour and Cosmopolitan, and chief content officer at Thrive Global. All of her work centers around helping people take actionable steps to live with less stress and more joy.

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.