Austin Willingham, 30, grew up in Decatur, Alabama, and knew from a very early age that he wanted to leave home as soon as he turned 18.

In 2013, Willingham went off to attend college three hours away at Troy University, where he spent every summer working odd jobs as a camp counselor, orientation leader and in the study abroad department at school.

“It felt like I was at some superhero college where people from all over the world are here in this one place doing the same thing. I got to meet some of my lifelong friends that I’m still in contact with,” Willingham tells CNBC Make It.

“We would share meals, we would learn each other’s cultures, we would travel together. It was truly a life-changing experience and it just really opened my mind.”

Willingham spent his junior year studying abroad in Sweden. While abroad, Willingham traveled all over Europe, visiting Germany, Denmark, and then the Netherlands for the first time.

“I got to see a lot of different places and it just showed me that I love all of it,” he says.

When his semester in Sweden was over, Willingham returned to Troy, Alabama to finish his degree but was already plotting his return to Europe.

“Once I came back from Sweden, I was just determined to move back to Europe and had reverse culture shock. I was asking my parents if I could transfer to a different university and complete my degree abroad,” he says.

“Me being the first-generation college student in my immediate family, my parents were really adamant about me just going ahead and finishing my degree.”

Willingham spent his senior year researching his options. He decided to apply for a working holiday visa to Ireland, which allows U.S. citizens to work and travel in the country for up to 12 months.

Willingham graduated in May 2017 and two months later boarded a plane to cross the Atlantic Ocean to start his new life in Dublin.

“It was filled with lots of Guinness, multicultural friends, community and traveling on the weekends. It was just a great time in general,” he says.

While in Ireland, Willingham interned at a publishing company and then worked in human resources.

Willingham fell in love in Ireland and he and his then partner decided to leave the country and spend some time traveling.

“It was a time of either I could continue focusing on building my career or I could do like many other people that I learned from in Europe and take a gap year and go traveling and see the world, so I decided to go do that,” he says.

After leaving Ireland, Willingham went backpacking through Southeast Asia with his partner at the time. He taught English as a second language classes while the two traveled through countries like Vietnam and Myanmar.

In 2019, Willingham moved to Australia and lived in the Land Down Under on and off for five years. The same year, the couple broke up and in 2020, Willingham returned to the U.S. to visit his parents. Just a few days before his flight back to Australia, the country closed its borders due to the covid-19 pandemic.

“I was in the U.S. for a year and after a month of being [back] in Alabama, I realized covid was really going to happen, so I decided to look for work in cities that were close by but a bit bigger,” he says.

“Growing up where I’m from, a lot of people never leave. They never really experience much, and I knew that I was different from a young age. I just knew there had to be more to life outside of that, and once I learned that there was, it just made me want to be exposed and to explore that as well.”

Willingham returned to Australia in 2021, and met his current partner. When the couple’s visas were up, they decided they wanted to move to Europe. The two wanted a country that offers a more straightforward path to permanent residency or EU citizenship. That’s how they landed on the Netherlands, specifically Rotterdam.

“We thought that it would be a good break. It would be a good change and transition from life in Australia. We also thought it would not be as difficult a change because Rotterdam is still the second-largest city in the country. We’re definitely city people, so we thought that this would just be the best space for us,” he says. “As soon as we got here, the people were so warm and they immediately welcomed us in.”

Willingham made the official move to Rotterdam in June, on a DAFT (Dutch-American Friendship Treaty) visa. That visa stipulates that he be self-employed or work as a freelancer only.

To satisfy the visa requirements, Willingham works as an event planner and does commercial modeling, but his ultimate goal is to grow his relocation services business, Willing World.

Willingham and his partner live in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate. The couple splits 430 euros or USD $498 a month for rent — paying 215 euros or USD $249 each — according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Including rent, Willingham’s monthly expenses in Rotterdam total approximately $680, covering utilities, transportation, health insurance, groceries, and his mobile phone bill.

“I like the freedom. This is coming from a privileged place, but I truly feel like anywhere outside the United States, it’s about being able to breathe and have a work-life balance. That’s what I love most about living abroad, even though I’m working for myself, there is still this balance and there’s not this societal pressure of needing to prove myself all the time.”

Willingham started sharing his journey abroad on TikTok and says that since moving to Rotterdam, he’s enjoyed building a community both online and in real life. He’s excited to see what the future holds, he says, but moving back to the United States is just not in the cards for him right now.

“I would love to live. I would love to own. I would love to say yes at some point, but not in the current situation that we have. It would be way down the line when the United States finally gets some change,” he says.

“I want to be able to be there for my parents, so maybe I wouldn’t move back permanently, but I would spend an extended amount of time.”

Willingham says that leaving the U.S. has taught him that he is capable of anything.

“I’ve learned that I can do it even when I’m scared because it still has to get done,” he says. “When living abroad, especially on your own, you don’t have anybody to depend on, so you learn to depend on yourself and trust yourself with it.”

Conversions from euros to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 euro to $1.16 USD on October 14, 2025. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

Want to be your own boss? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, How To Start A Business: For First-Time Founders. Find step-by-step guidance for launching your first business, from testing your idea to growing your revenue.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life, and request to join our exclusive community on LinkedIn to connect with experts and peers.

In April 2024, Florence Poirel left her $390,000-a-year job at Google for what she calls a “mini retirement.”

Eighteen months later, she’s not sure she’ll ever return to full-time work. “I have to say, I’m not particularly antsy to go back to employment,” she tells CNBC Make It.

The 37-year-old lives in Switzerland with her partner, Jan, a fellow Googler who stepped away at the same time. Poirel first started thinking seriously about financial independence in 2018, after meeting Jan, who is 17 years her senior.

“I could not just wait for retirement to enjoy my time with him because he would be much older at that time,” she says.

Thinking about how they could enjoy more time together led Poirel to the FIRE movement — short for “financial independence, retire early” — which focuses on saving and investing aggressively to gain the freedom to step back from work sooner.

Poirel had always been careful with money, saving much of her income even as her salary rose. And despite earning a high salary, she rarely dined out, spent little on entertainment and flew economy or stayed in modest hotels when traveling, she says.

But discovering FIRE gave her frugality a new sense of purpose. And as she learned more about sustainability, she became vegan and started weighing the environmental and ethical impact of everything she bought.

“While I was mostly driven by frugality at the start of my journey, my buying process is now sustainability driven,” she says.

Now, before buying anything, Poirel asks herself the following questions:

• Do I really need this? Is it worth adding as future waste for the planet?
• Can I buy it secondhand?
• Is it vegan?
• Was it ethically produced?
• Is it recyclable, and how long would it take to decompose once thrown away?

“I think it’s important to understand how money gives power for good, whether you actually spend it or not,” she says.

By the time she left Google, Poirel had about $1.5 million in the bank — enough to take a long break from full-time work.

To make her savings last in one of the costliest countries in the world, she continues to live simply and avoid unnecessary spending. Instead of expensive nights out, her days mostly revolve around hiking, swimming in Lake Zurich and cooking at home with Jan.

However, she’s willing to spend more on items that are well made and designed to last. “If I bring something into my home or wardrobe, it has to be something environmentally and ethically sound,” she says.

She isn’t necessarily spending less than she used to — just spending more intentionally. “It’s not about cutting everything out, it’s about choosing better,” she says.

At the same time, her checklist isn’t hard to follow, since she’s always been frugal by nature. “I know people often use shopping as therapy,” she says. “This has never been the case for me. I find shopping boring at best and stressful at worst.”

All amounts are in U.S. dollars, converted from Swiss francs at the OANDA exchange rate of 1 CHF to 1.22 USD on May 31, 2025.

Want to earn more and grow your money? Save 30% with this earnings-boosting bundle of our top courses.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life, and request to join our exclusive community on LinkedIn to connect with experts and peers.

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.

Becky Powell spends 10 hours per week, on average, making digital worksheets for her fellow educators to purchase.

The 41-year-old kindergarten teacher in Beaverton, Oregon, brought in $125,500 doing that last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. She posts her worksheet booklets — designed to help teach literacy to young students — to her online store on Teachers Pay Teachers, an Etsy-style marketplace.

Powell’s store, Sight Word Activities, currently features 427 different listings, ranging from free downloads to a $30 bundle of 20 booklets. When she first launched the side hustle in 2015, she earned enough to pay her monthly car insurance bill — roughly $60 — in a matter of weeks, she says. After three months, the extra income covered her and her husband’s monthly student loan payments.

Her classroom was her research lab, and her knack for teaching children to sight-read helped her fill a niche on the website, she says. She ramps up work on her side hustle each summer, so she can keep a more flexible schedule during the school year.

You don’t have to spend any money to get started, Powell notes: Teachers Pay Teachers has both free and paid tiers for sellers. “Basic sellers” keep 55% of their sales, while “premium sellers” pay $59.95 per year to keep 80% of their sales.

Powell pays that subscription fee, as does her husband Jerome — a full-time computer engineer who manages another Teachers Pay Teachers store, called Editable Activities. His store brought in an additional $51,800 last year, and his search engine optimization expertise helped Powell get her store off the ground, she says.

Here, Powell discusses what you need to start a worksheet side hustle, why her side hustle has succeeded so far and how her confidence as a first-time entrepreneur has helped her grow as a person.

CNBC Make It: Do you think your side hustle is replicable?

Powell: Yeah, I think so — especially if you have a combination of passion and knowing the [education] market. You need those things to identify gaps [in learning] and build your intuition.

What do you mean by that? How do you build that intuition?

It’s one thing to have a career in [a specific] market. It’s another to really know it, so you have to research it. You’ve got to find consumers for that market and interview them, so that you know it so innately and so intimately that you can see the holes.

Once you marry all those things, you won’t make something that might work, or could work, or should work. You know it will work.

You started a business without any entrepreneurial experience. Did running a successful side hustle help you build confidence in or out of the classroom?

I majored in education, so I’ve never had a business or sales mindset at all. It’s not my realm. Jerome helped me understand SEO, marketing and how to step into your consumers’ shoes. That’s why it’s been such an amazing balance.

But I had to overcome the “What do I do know? I’m not in business” mentality. I now see my confidence coming through in my ability and willingness to teach others.

I have helped eight friends and coworkers open their own stores on Teachers Pay Teachers. I never charge them, and never would — I get a thrill when those I mentor experience their own success.

A lot of people have side gigs, but few bring in six figures per year. What do you think is the key to your success?

My husband always told me, “The riches are found in niches.” Find that one area you can do really well with and hone in on it.

For me, it wasn’t just [how to get kids to learn] sight words. It was thinking about hands-on activities and readily available tools that would engage them. I really drilled, drilled, drilled down the ideas, getting more specific, until I hit gold at the very bottom.

So, it’s not just a niche. It’s finding your niche within a niche.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

DON’T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter!

Get CNBC’s free Warren Buffett Guide to Investing, which distills the billionaire’s No. 1 best piece of advice for regular investors, do’s and don’ts, and three key investing principles into a clear and simple guidebook.

Check out more from Six-Figure Side Hustle:

• 21-year-old ran his side hustle from his parents’ apartment—now it brings in over $500,000 a year
• 55-year-old whose backyard side hustle brought in nearly $20,000 in a month: ‘Anyone can do this’
• 32-year-old turned Airbnb rental into a $205,000-a-year side hustle—here’s a ‘large part’ of what made it successful

There’s a sharp divide between what Gen Z values and what hiring managers are actually looking for.

My team at Becoming You Labs recently conducted a study using our values-assessment tool, The Values Bridge, which ranks 16 values using 100 behavioral questions. Since May, over 77,000 people have taken it. We then cross-referenced the study with a national survey of 2,100 hiring managers across industries like tech, consulting, banking, and professional services. (Read more about our research here.)

The disconnect was clear — and pretty stark: Gen Z’s top three values are self-care, authentic self-expression, and helping people. The people hiring them, on the other hand, are looking for employees who value achievement, learning, and hard work. When you cross-reference the two studies, only 2% of Gen Z shares their bosses’ priorities.

In response to the findings, one CEO said: “This explains exactly why we can’t hire.” A hospital executive put it more bluntly: “We are now hiring two or three new docs to replace a retiring one. They tell us we should not be expecting them to work hard because life as a cardiologist isn’t what it used to be.”

One head of HR summed all the comments up with the line: “This is crazy. And confirming.”

Gen Z’s response? Starkly different. One recent grad on TikTok: “Why would we want to live by Boomer values when their values ruined the world?” Another added: “Old people hate young people because our lives prove theirs were wasted. I’m not going to wish I worked more on my deathbed.”

The intensity of the debate didn’t shock me. I’ve watched this clash build for years — in classrooms and in boardrooms. Companies are frustrated. Young people are frustrated. And looming over it all? AI, threatening to replace the few entry-level jobs Gen Z already struggles to land.

Given this context, what’s an “unemployable” (as one WSJ headline put it) Gen Zer supposed to do? Nobody wants to suppress their values, and that’s understandable. But most people can’t go without work. Is there a way forward for the 98% of Gen Zers who put self-care, authenticity, and altruism above company success and career propulsion?

Here’s my advice for the vast majority of Gen Zers stuck in what probably feels like a very untenable place.

When I teach my class “Becoming You” at NYU Stern School of Business, I don’t let students self-report when it comes to their desire for wealth. The reason is simple: People rarely tell the truth about their relationship with money — to themselves and others — because there’s thought to be a faint stink off of wanting to be rich.

But you cannot make any sustainable career decisions without getting very honest about the number in your head. That is, the amount of money you want and need to feel, “That’s enough.” It could be “one good vacation a year,” as a student once put it, it could be as another admitted, “one private helicopter per kid.”

My research shows that 42% of Gen Z has affluence in their top five values, 35% consider it a moderate value, and 23% have it in their bottom five values.

Once you know where affluence ranks for you, you can make more thoughtful choices about whether to nudge yourself toward the 2% or not. After all, even with self-care as a top value, if wealth is close behind, something has to give. On the other hand, if wealth ranks No. 10 or even No. 16, a whole different world of work enters your realm of possibilities.

If you do not want to suppress your values, your best strategy is to find a company that supports the ones you already have.

Keep your eyes open for the published lists of businesses that are said to support employee well-being, authenticity, and giving back. Just know that these companies are often magnets for job-seekers. If you end up applying to one, make sure to level up with an excellent cover letter and top-notch resume.

Then there’s entrepreneurship. As a two-time founder myself, I know how grueling it can be. But if you have the right idea, with market fit and the stamina to match, creating your own workplace culture is the surest way to be able to live by your values.

I rarely suggest people try to change their values. It’s like changing your personality; it usually doesn’t stick. But if landing a job is an urgent priority, and affluence is a long-range one, you may choose to suppress your desire for wellbeing, balance, and authentic self-expression for a period of time and embrace achievement and workcentrism.

In other words, make like the Boomers and say hello to delayed gratification.

My word of warning, however, is if you follow this strategy, don’t dabble and don’t relitigate your decision daily. Instead, commit. And commit for long enough to see results. I recommend a full decade. Overnight success is a myth, even for those in the 2%.

How much you live by your values is one of the most personal, consequential choices you’ll ever make. That choice can shape your income, your sense of purpose, and the arc of your career. Approach it not with panic or resignation, but with the wisdom of your years — both the ones you’ve already lived and the many still ahead.

Suzy Welch is an award-winning NYU Stern School of Business professor, acclaimed researcher, popular podcaster and three-time NYT best-selling author, most recently with ”Becoming You: A Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career.” A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Business School, Dr. Welch is a frequent guest of the Today Show and an op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal. She serves on the boards of public and private companies, and is the Director of the NYU | Stern Initiative on Purpose and Flourishing.

Want to be your own boss? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, How To Start A Business: For First-Time Founders. Find step-by-step guidance for launching your first business, from testing your idea to growing your revenue.

On a recent episode of her podcast, bestselling author Mel Robbins tackles the topic of happiness — specifically fun.

“Lately, I’ve been feeling like life just isn’t fun anymore,” she said on the show.

Robbins went on to list a number of reasons for this. For example, people are burned out, overwhelmed by life and world events, and more focused on what’s taking place on their phone than in their physical life, she says.

But “fun isn’t just some frivolous thing,” she said. “Micro-moments of fun, I’m talking laughter, silliness, joy, they’re critical for happiness, resilience.”

The benefits of laughter also include stress relief, pain relief and a stronger immune system, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“Fun isn’t optional,” Robbins said. “Fun is how you feel alive again.”

On the show, Robbins shared the No. 1 way she says you can introduce more fun into your life: Make one small joyful change every day.

“Fun doesn’t have to be some big production,” Robbins said. It can actually come down to some pretty small choices.

She gave a direct example on her podcast. “I’m going to put on my fun pink glasses,” she said. Robbins then swapped out her signature black framed glasses with a pair of neon pink aviators.

“I love these glasses,” she said.

Having more fun can be as simple as that, according to Robbins. Fun can look like putting on the colorful glasses, wearing the colorful socks, listening to your favorite song while doing the dishes, or sharing a funny story before a meeting at work.

“The happiest people don’t play it cool,” keynote speaker and author of “Happiness Works: The Science of Thriving at Work” Jessica Weiss recently wrote in an article for CNBC Make It.

“They actively seek out the things, people and activities that light them up.”

Research shows that happiness is often found in the little things. “Happiness is created by increasing the small moments of joy, of fun, of laughter, of silliness in your life,” Robbins said.

“Don’t you deserve a little lightness?”

Want to earn more and grow your money? Save 30% with this earnings-boosting bundle of our top courses.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life, and request to join our exclusive community on LinkedIn to connect with experts and peers.