Washington-born couple Cassandra Tresl, 33, and her husband, Alex Ninman, 34, were living in the Czech Republic with her grandfather when their daughter was born in 2020. They faced a crossroads: move back to the United States or stay abroad?

The couple had moved in with Tresl’s grandfather around March of that year after learning they were expecting, using her grandfather’s place as their home base while traveling around Europe before Tresl was due to give birth.

Tresl says they had told friends they’d move back to the U.S. after their daughter was born, but when they started looking at how expensive it would be to buy a house and pay for childcare, they decided to look to Italy instead. 

“I really thought that if I had a kid, I would go back to the States,” Tresl says. “And then it ended up not happening, because I realized how much more expensive it would be if we did go back.”

They decided to explore options in Italy after Tresl remembered seeing stories about towns across the country selling one-euro homes in order to attract foreign investors to buy the houses, rehab them and drive up the dwindling population numbers.

Tresl first wanted to determine the actual cost of purchasing one of those homes to see if it was an option for the couple, since they didn’t want to spend more than 20,000 euros, or about $23,627 USD, on the purchase.

Many of the one-euro properties come with a catch. In some towns, the one-euro purchase is symbolic and the real prices are in the thousands. In others, the bids start at a single euro, but the final price is usually higher. And once buyers get their properties, they generally have to complete the renovations within a certain timeframe.

“I started to look online for houses for sale in Italy. Since we were in Europe and we’ve been to Italy, it wasn’t a problem to go there and check out some of these houses. I’m also not the type of person that would have ever done anything like this sight unseen,” Tresl tells CNBC Make It.

In 2021, the couple went on a house-hunting tour in Italy and viewed 15 homes across Abruzzo and Tuscany. They ended up purchasing a two-floor, two-bedroom house just under 1,076 square feet, with a third bedroom in the basement and an attic, in Abruzzo.

They knew renovations would be costly, so Tresl says they picked their home largely based on the price — and the fact that the terrace has a view.

“I’m a spreadsheet type of person, so I had all the pros and cons of all these houses and it came down to Abruzzo being a much better value in general,” she says. “In hindsight, there are a lot of other reasons why I’m glad that we landed here, but at that point in time, I knew nothing else besides the price and that I wanted the best deal.”

The couple closed on the house in February 2022 in an all-cash deal for 11,500 euros, or $13,150 at the time, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“I loved the price and the terrace,” Tresl says. “People think that it’s super easy to just throw a rock in any direction and find a house with a garden in Italy, but it’s just not the case. We do have a terrace, and we have a really nice view, and that was a nonnegotiable for me.”

The price also allowed the couple to buy the property outright, which “alleviated a lot of stress in multiple areas of my life,” Tresl says. “If my income fluctuates or money gets tight, at least we don’t have a mortgage and our family has a secure roof over our heads. This financial freedom was actually one of the main factors that made this move and decision possible.”

Tresl, Ninman and their daughter briefly returned to the Czech Republic to develop a plan for where to live, since their Italy house wasn’t habitable at the time — it needed a lot of work since it had been empty for 30 years, Tresl says. They decided to rent an Airbnb in a nearby town in Abruzzo for a little over a month while their house was renovated.

Because the house had been empty for decades, the walls needed resurfacing, some electrical work needed to be redone, the windows and doors needed redoing and the bathroom and kitchen needed to be gutted. Ninman did most of the work himself, but the couple hired out to do the plumbing, Tresl says.

In total, the couple spent around 12,000 to 15,000 euros, or $14,207 to $17,758, to renovate the home, they estimate.

As part of the renovation, the couple made the terrace bigger, added a bathroom downstairs and turned the basement into a proper guest suite. They finished most of the renovation in the fall of 2022, but redid the basement and attic in 2023.

Tresl says she wanted the house to have an eclectic design, so she visited thrift stores and flea markets to source vintage pieces.

“I wanted natural materials and to combine both warm and cold. I have a lot of color in the house in terms of paint because I felt like the house was small, so I wanted to make it a happy house,” Tresl says. “Everything I picked out, I have a reason for it. I wanted to set a goal for myself that everything I look at reminds me of where I got it from.”

Although the couple doesn’t have a mortgage, the house isn’t completely free to live in. Here’s a breakdown of the couple’s house-related expenses, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. All expenses are rounded.

• Internet: 12 euros (about $14) per month
• Property taxes: 61 euros (about $72) annually
• Water: 91 euros (about $108) every two months
• Electricity: 217 euros (about $256) every two months
• Garbage: 286 euros (about $338) annually

The couple also has a pellet stove that they use in the winter. It can cost an additional 42 euros a week, or about $200 a month, for heating, Tresl says.

Since moving to Italy permanently, Tresl left her tech job and started creating content for her travel blog and newsletter. She also works for another travel blogger as an operations manager. Ninman left his job as a butcher when the couple moved out of the U.S. and now manages a second property the couple owns and rents out on Airbnb.

In addition to their primary residence, Tresl and Ninman acquired a second property in Italy in 2024, which they rent on Airbnb for up to 85 euros, or about $101, per night.

Located in the countryside of their town, the single-story two-bedroom, one-bathroom house sits on its own land and has a private garden. The couple bought it for 17,000 euros, or about $20,083.

Tresl says she’s been asked before why the couple doesn’t make it their primary residence, but she says she loves being in the center of her town. “It’s really nice just to be able to walk anywhere from our house,” she adds.

Now that the couple has two properties in Italy, they say they are staying put — most likely until they are empty nesters.

“My husband and I have talked about probably moving out of Italy once we know what our daughter is doing and if she decides to go to school somewhere else,” Tresl says. “It will free us up to do whatever, but that’s not something we’re thinking about for at least another 10 years because I want my daughter to have stability.”

They visit the U.S. about once a year, and although it will always be home, Tresl says it feels more foreign each time she returns. 

“I feel like an outdoor cat having to go back in or vice versa … It just feels odd. I grew up in the ’90s and I feel like my childhood was so different compared to what I witnessed on my last visit. It’s a huge part of why I love being in Italy right now, because my daughter, I feel, is getting a much more wholesome experience and a genuine childhood,” she says.

Conversions from euros to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 euro to $1.18 USD on Feb. 9, 2026. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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Michele and Marvin Velazquez had an unusual source of inspiration for starting their business: their less-than-perfect engagement story.

The Orange County, California-based couple, both 46, are the founders of The Heart Bandits, a custom proposal planning company. Their love story is the foundation of their business, which brings in seven figures a year in total income.

Michele, an Air Force veteran who worked in event planning, first met Marvin, an MIT-educated engineer, through work. After two years of dating, Marvin proposed to Michele in April 2010 following a sunset cruise in Marina Del Rey.

“He dropped to his knee and proposed, and it was over very quickly,” Michele tells CNBC Make It. “I was happy, obviously,” she says, but she told her now-husband afterwards that it wasn’t exactly her dream proposal: She would have preferred something a little bolder, like a flash mob.

Marvin admitted that he had struggled to come up with a good proposal plan. “He said, ‘Oh well, you know, there’s not really resources out there for guys,’” Michele recalls. That sparked an idea for her: What if they started a service to help other couples achieve their dream proposals?

Michele and Marvin officially launched The Heart Bandits a few months after their engagement. Today, they say they plan approximately 500 proposals each year, and estimate that they’ve worked with 9,000 couples so far.

Michele has aspired to be an entrepreneur since she was a child, she says, so she was “always looking for gaps in the market and different ways that I could start a business.”

For the first few years, the couple built The Heart Bandits on the side while they both worked their full-time jobs, Michele says.

To attract clients, they posted flyers in local parking lots and even turned their car into an advertisement with custom decals. Michele also promoted The Heart Bandits on online message boards like Yahoo Answers.

“Any time a guy would post, like, ‘How should I propose?’ I would answer, ‘Oh, we have a proposal planning business. You should check it out,’” she says.

That’s how she landed The Heart Bandits’ first client, a soldier who wanted to plan a virtual proposal in Houston while he was deployed overseas in Afghanistan. Michele and Marvin set up a video projector in a hotel room full of flowers so that he could propose to his then-girlfriend.

It was a “heartwarming” story, Michele says, so she pitched it to the Houston Chronicle, which covered the story in an article. Media became a key element of their business strategy: Every time The Heart Bandits planned a unique or particularly compelling proposal, Michele reached out to local publications.

At the time, “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says, “but I just wanted it really bad, so I was doing whatever I could do to make it happen.”

Approximately three years after starting The Heart Bandits, Michele decided she was ready to quit her full-time job and focus on growing the business. Marvin followed suit and left his job in 2015.

Before their two children were born, Michele and Marvin traveled frequently to visit popular proposal destinations. Today, they largely plan proposals remotely, leaning on their wide network of international vendors.

According to Michele, New York City is their most popular location for proposals, followed closely by Paris. They’ve also planned proposals in Puerto Rico, Singapore, Australia, Mexico, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands, she says.

The Velazquezes say they initially charged just $300 to plan a custom proposal, but after working with a business consultant, they decided to raise their rates, which Michele says was a “game-changer” for their revenue.

The company’s current prices aren’t listed publicly, but Michele says they charge a flat fee ranging from $1,649 to $2,149 for a custom proposal, depending on how much effort is involved, on top of costs like materials and vendor fees. If those exceed $8,000, she says, they charge 20% of that budget instead of a flat fee.

The lower end of the price range is for clients who “already have the vision in mind, and they just need execution,” Michele says, while the higher end covers brainstorming the idea, creating the plan and being on-site to make sure everything runs smoothly.

The Heart Bandits also offers pre-designed proposal packages, custom date planning and proposal planning masterclasses, but these services account for much smaller shares of the business, according to Michele.

The Velazquezes run The Heart Bandits from their shared home. “That’s the beauty of our business,” Marvin says: It’s not a “brick-and-mortar” operation, which keeps overhead costs low.

The Heart Bandits brought in seven figures in total income in 2024 and 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, and the business made mid-six-figures in gross profit both years, after paying vendor costs.

They typically reinvest part of that profit in the business to ensure that they’re keeping up with the times: for example, hiring social media content creators to optimize the business’s online presence.

Looking back, Michele says the proposals they planned in The Heart Bandits’ early days are “funny compared to now.” For one such proposal, she and Marvin hiked up to the top of Hollywood Hills and “made a cute little picnic ourselves.”

“We made handmade signs, and brought In-N-Out because the client really wanted it. We chased ants away,” she recalls.

The bar for proposals has gotten higher since then, according to Michele. Today, she says, “we’re bringing in fireworks” and arranging helicopter rides. “It’s changed so much,” she says.

Marvin partially attributes that shift to the rise of social media: Many clients are focused on “picture-worthy” proposals, he says, rather than intimate ones.

The proposal planning industry has changed, too. At the start of their business, when Michele approached other wedding vendors about potential collaborations, “those people would laugh at me,” she says. “They said, ‘This is stupid. There’s no money to be had here.’”

Now, some of the same vendors that once rejected her have created proposal planning services of their own, according to Michele.

Plenty of competitors have popped up in recent years, but the Velazquezes are hoping to stand out by demonstrating the value of their 16 years of experience. “I know what to do if it rains. I know what to do if a park ranger asks you if you have a permit,” Michele says.

The best business lesson they’ve learned from running The Heart Bandits for 16 years is “to evolve with the times,” she says.

“The world has shifted,” she adds. “If we didn’t shift with it, we would have been left behind.”

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Habits shape how we work, how we manage stress, and how we relate to others. They determine whether we move closer to our goals, or repeat the same mistakes.

The same is true in our romantic relationships. Our satisfaction, stability and sense of connection are directly related to the behaviors we default to every day. 

As a psychologist who studies couples — and as a husband — I’ve seen how some of the most powerful relationship rituals also happen to be the simplest. Here are five habits that reliably show up in the happiest, most resilient relationships.

Humans are biologically wired to focus on the negative. This bias helped our ancestors survive by scanning for threats. But in modern relationships, it often leads to pessimism, criticism or chronic dissatisfaction.

Over time, a glass-half-empty mindset trains partners to look for problems rather than moments worth appreciating. That’s why what researchers call “capitalization,” or how partners respond when the other shares good news, is so important.

Studies show that when people respond with enthusiasm (i.e., asking questions, expressing interest, celebrating wins), couples report higher relationship satisfaction and stronger emotional bonds.

Feeling like your partner is “your person” matters a lot, but no one can realistically meet all of another person’s emotional, social and psychological needs.

Happy couples invest in friendships, family relationships and community connections, both together and independently. It prevents the relationship from becoming overburdened by unrealistic expectations.

When partners feel socially supported beyond the relationship, they’re less likely to feel resentful, trapped or emotionally depleted. The relationship becomes a place of choice, not obligation.

Variety is called the spice of life for a reason. Even strong relationships can begin to feel stale when the novelty disappears. This is especially true for couples who live together and work demanding jobs; the cycle of work, home, sleep and repeat can become monotonous over time.

This is why happy couples actively seek out what researchers call “third spaces,” or environments that exist outside of home (the first place) and work (the second place). It could be a favorite café, a climbing gym, a walking trail, a trivia night, or a class they take together.

The primary purpose of the third space is intentional exploration. When you regularly introduce new third spaces into your routine, you inject a sense of novelty and adventure without needing to travel or make any major life changes.

Consistency and support are foundational in healthy relationships. But over time, some couples begin to over-rely on one another — for emotional regulation, decision-making or daily logistics. This can slowly lead to codependence.

Happy couples counteract this by practicing independence. They maintain solo hobbies, spend time alone, or handle some responsibilities individually.

This independence is vital for maintaining a sense of self. More importantly, it enables something many couples underestimate the value of: the chance to miss one another.

Waking up next to the same person every day can create the illusion of deep familiarity. Many couples assume that physical closeness naturally begets emotional closeness, but this is not the case. People grow and change in little ways more often than we realize.

Happy couples always remain curious. They remind themselves that they’re both constantly evolving. By making time to ask questions, they also begin to notice all the new dreams, wants and needs in their partner. This protects them from one of the most common relationship pitfalls: distance despite proximity.

Mark Travers, PhD, is a psychologist who specializes in relationships. He holds degrees from Cornell University and the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the lead psychologist at Awake Therapy, a telehealth company that provides online psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching. He is also the curator of the popular mental health and wellness website Therapytips.org.

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which examines how people earn, spend and save their money.

Margaret Skiff learned early on the importance of good money management. Her dad was a teacher and her mom stayed at home for much of her childhood in Maine, so the family was “always pretty strapped for cash,” she says.

“We definitely did everything we could to live below our means and be OK, but I think that definitely taught me the value of money … we always made it work with what we had,” the 27-year-old tells CNBC Make It.

With those humble beginnings, earning $70,000 a year at a tech company at her first job out of college in Washington, D.C. in 2020 made Skiff feel rich, she says.

“That felt like so much money,” she says. “I remember getting the offer and being like, ‘Oh my God, I’m making more money than both of my parents combined … I am rich. This is amazing.’”

Fast forward to just five years later: In 2025, Skiff had more than doubled her income between her $113,000 annual salary as a full-time senior experience analyst for a transportation company and bringing in an additional $38,000 as a content creator on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, where she earns money through brand deals, affiliate links and creator funds.

Her income, coupled with strategic savings strategies, allowed her to buy a duplex home in Portland, Maine, and pay off her student loans.

Skiff purchased her $575,000 home in April 2025 with a $57,500 down payment. After paying off the remainder of her student loans in January, the roughly $510,000 left on her mortgage is her only debt.

“I have always been pretty debt-averse,” she says. “I have seen family members get into some serious debt that they haven’t been able to get out of, and I’ve just told myself I’m never going to be in that situation.”

Skiff worked at hotels and restaurants throughout high school and college to help support herself. She had her heart set on leaving Maine for college, so while there were more affordable options in-state, she attended Roanoke College in Virginia. It cost Skiff around $10,000 a year out-of-pocket to cover her cost of attendance on top of taking out a total of $32,000 in student loans over four years.

When she was a senior in high school, Skiff says her mom sat her down and helped her understand that taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt wouldn’t be feasible for the types of jobs she wanted to pursue after school. They figured around $30,000 in debt would be manageable, and taking on the debt was “worth it” for Skiff to attend Roanoke, where she says she felt she belonged.

She has continued to bring that strategic mindset to all of her major financial decisions. When she bought her car in January 2021, for example, she knew better than to accept a first offer at the dealership. 

“I went and I was really trying to haggle the guy on the price, and he was like, ‘The monthly payment is going to be $250. You do understand how low of a car payment that is?’ And I was still like, ‘Yeah, but it’s not low enough for me,’” she says.

Skiff started watching personal finance content on YouTube when she was in college and learned the importance of saving and investing early and often, she says. She automated her 401(k) investments as soon as she started working full-time so she doesn’t have to think about manually contributing.

“Now being almost six years post-grad, it is so satisfying to look at my investment accounts and see if I had started this at 25 versus at 21, I would not have this money today,” she says. “I might not even have it in savings, because [if] it was there for me to spend, I [may have] spent it.”

Skiff returned to Maine in November 2023 after a few years living in Virginia. She lived with her mom in Newcastle for about seven months before moving to an apartment in Portland. After a year of renting there, her landlord did not renew her lease, so she weighed her options: find a new rental or buy a home.

She says she always wanted to own her home, but didn’t think she could afford to buy. But when she started looking at local listings on Zillow, she realized she could find a single-family home with a mortgage payment roughly the same as what she’d pay in rent if she got a roommate or two.

“I tend to have spurts of ‘I can do anything’ … And this was one of those, like, I’m gonna buy a house,” Skiff recalls thinking at the time.

As she got deeper into the home search process, she soon realized buying a multi-family property could make even more sense. To afford the single-family homes she saw, she would need at least one roommate, she says. But in a multi-family property, she’d have the ability to live alone in her unit and have tenants in a separate unit.

Just two months into her home search process, Skiff purchased her duplex in April 2025 for $575,000 with a 10% down payment of $57,500 and a 6.625% interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. She also has to pay for private mortgage insurance each month since she put less than 20% down when she purchased the home.

Skiff had started earning money from her social media content in 2023, and “didn’t touch” those earnings until it was time to put a down payment on her home, she says. Both her unit and her tenants’ unit downstairs contain three bedrooms and a bathroom.

Skiff’s tenants had already lived in the home for 14 years, she says, and she raised their rent “a pretty reasonable amount” when she took over as landlord. Her mortgage is $4,000 a month and the tenants pay $2,000. 

Becoming a landlord was “overwhelming” at first, she says, especially as she had to start thinking about things like snow removal or repairs for her tenants. “It is a lot more responsibility. Just all of a sudden, knowing that you are responsible for someone’s comfortability,” she says.

The home needed some upgrades when Skiff moved in, including plumbing, electrical and drywall, which she paid to have professionally done. Skiff and her mom did the rest of the renovations on their own, including refinishing floors and upgrading her bathroom. She’s spent around $15,000 on renovations so far. There’s more to come, including a gut renovation of her kitchen, which she’s saving up for.

Since buying her home, Skiff doesn’t splurge much on things other than repairs and home decor, she says. But she still dedicates time and money to going out with her friends or the occasional weekend getaway.

“My latest splurge has been the bathroom renovation,” she says. “That is the greatest thing that $3,500 could buy me.”

Here’s how she spent her money in October 2025.

• Savings and investments: $5,682 toward her 401(k), individual retirement account, savings and health savings accounts
• Housing and utilities: $1,367 for her mortgage, Wi-Fi and utilities, minus her tenants’ and roommate’s payments
• Food: $557 on groceries and dining out
• Student loan payment: $300
• Discretionary: $225 on Halloween costume supplies, a concert and lighting fixtures for her home
• Health: $162 on health, vision and dental insurance and medications 
• Business expenses: $160 for an accountant and iCloud storage
• Phone: $75, which she pays to her mom for her mobile plan
• Transportation: $54 on gas and rideshares
• Subscriptions and memberships: $33 for a gym membership and streaming services

Skiff paid off the rest of her student debt in January, but was still making monthly payments as of October 2025. She paid off her car loan in March 2025 and pays for insurance bi-annually, so did not have a payment in October.

Despite her relatively high income, Skiff still takes some cost-cutting measures from time to time, such as having a roommate. In October, she sublet one of the bedrooms in her unit to a medical student who paid her $1,000 for the month.

“It ended up being a really good situation because she paid half of what I pay [for the mortgage] so it helped offset that,” Skiff says. “In the coming months, I’m definitely planning on having a roommate again to help save up for an entire kitchen renovation.”

Buying a home and paying off her student loans were Skiff’s biggest money goals for a while, and she’s looking to keep building on that momentum. She typically pays an extra $200 on her mortgage every month to build up her equity and stop paying PMI as soon as she can.

“After I bought my house, it was kind of like, what’s next?” she says. Now, she’s focused on getting the home to a place where “it’s more complete and done,” she says.

Additionally, Skiff wants to continue building her wealth through saving and investing, aiming for a $500,000 net worth in the future. She’s well on her way with a total of nearly $190,000 saved and invested across her retirement, brokerage and savings accounts as of January 2026. 

“Little kid me would be like, ‘Wow, you’re doing it!’ so I think about that a lot,” she says. “But at the same time, I have so much more I want to do and so many things I want to explore and try and accomplish … But I’m very content with what I have been able to do so far.”

What’s your budget breakdown? Share your story with us for a chance to be featured in a future installment.

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I’ve spent more than 12 years studying happiness and human nature, and I’ve found that money is one of the most complex and fascinating contributors to a happy life.

While it’s true that money alone can’t buy happiness, our spending decisions can certainly contribute or detract from it. This insight led me to design a rule that adds more clarity, energy and freedom to my life: Take a no-spend month.

A no-spend month is exactly what it sounds like: a full month of avoiding non-essential purchases. With a no-spend month, you still pay rent, utilities, bills and other necessary expenses. But discretionary spending — like buying new gadgets, books, or restaurant takeout — is off the table.

A no-spend month breaks the dopamine loop of impulse buying. Research shows that although impulse buys give us a brief dopamine spike, the pleasure fades quickly. It’s also true that often, when we don’t feed our cravings, they don’t build up; instead, they fade away.

You’ll also gain more self-knowledge. If you’re like me, you may find yourself spending money without really thinking about it: a coffee here, a new shirt there, a subscription you haven’t cancelled but rarely use. Without the ability to “swipe away” stress or boredom, we become more aware of our spending habits.

A brief period of deprivation prompts us to answer the question: Are we spending our resources purposefully, in a way that reflects our values and supports our long-term happiness?

1. Identify your ‘why’

Clarify what you hope to gain from the experience. Whether it’s saving for a bigger investment, reducing clutter, or aligning your behavior with your values, understanding your “why” behind this experiment will help you stick to it. A reason that’s connected to something you want is more powerful than something you just think you “should” do.

2. Set a timeline

If a whole month seems daunting, try one week or one day per week. What feels realistic given your lifestyle and financial circumstances? Your approach doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

3. Define your essentials

Your “essentials” category can include more than just basic necessities like bills and groceries. For instance, you might want to include things that are important in your life, like social activities with friends. During my own “No-Spend February,” I buy only necessary household items — and also gifts.

4. Use a wish list

When you’re tempted to click “buy now” or hand over your credit card, add the item to your wish list instead. Delaying purchases until after your no-spend month can help clarify what you really want.

5. Set up safeguards

For instance, if you tend to shop when you’re bored, decide in advance on some alternate activities you can use to combat boredom.

6. Find a purpose for the savings

Where will the money you save during your no-spend month go? Will you create an emergency fund? Pay off debt? Make an investment? Save for future travel? Instead of feeling like you’re depriving yourself, you feel like you’re gaining something bigger.

7. Shop what you have

When you feel the urge to buy something new, try hunting for items within your own home. For example, books you’ve been meaning to read or forgotten supplies. You can also “shop your pantry” and use up items that have been collecting dust on the shelves.

A month of mindful spending shifts the focus from buying solutions to solving problems. Ultimately, less time browsing means more time to invest in the relationships, activities, and things that matter most.

Gretchen Rubin is one of today’s most influential observers of happiness and human nature. She’s the author of many books, including the bestseller ”The Happiness Project.” Her books have sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide. She also hosts the award-winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, where she explores practical solutions for living a happier life. Her new book is ”Secrets of Adulthood.”

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