I tried for over a decade to move to Spain. I went to study Spanish at 21, teach English at 26, and get my master’s at 29, but always ended up back in the U.S. Back then, my options to stay long-term seemed so limited: get transferred through a company, marry a local, or have rare skills that qualified for a work visa. I didn’t fit any of those boxes.

I finally made my last move to Spain in 2015, at age 35, and I’m now a proud citizen. As the founder of She Hit Refresh — where I’ve helped hundreds of other women move abroad — I often think about how much easier it is to relocate these days, thanks especially to the rise of digital nomad visas. 

Traditionally, you have to apply for visas from your home country, which can mean long processing times at consulates, strict requirements, lots of paperwork, and waiting in the U.S. until your visa is approved. But a few European countries now allow in-country applications.

Keep in mind that aside from any local financial requirements for a visa or permit, other costs and considerations can include relocation specialists and lawyers who can help facilitate the process.

Here are four countries in Europe that let you relocate first and handle the visa paperwork after you arrive.

Spain is one of the most popular destinations for Americans moving abroad. With its sunshine, warm culture, stunning scenery, and affordability for those with a U.S. income, it’s easy to understand why.

Spain launched its digital nomad visa in 2023 for freelancers, the self-employed, and remote employees. Apply from the U.S. and you’ll be issued a one-year visa, but apply from Spain and you can get a three-year permit. Among the women I’ve worked with, processing times from Spain seem to be faster, too, sometimes just a few weeks.

Before you go, gather key documents in the U.S., especially your FBI background check and apostille, or certificate of authentication, since they’re more complicated to obtain once you’re abroad. You’ll also be asked to provide proof of remote work and income.

Giovanna Gonzalez, 36, moved from Chicago to Valencia in April 2025. “We booked a trip to Spain so we could apply from within the country,” says Gonzalez, who tells me her experience was smooth, particularly with the help of an immigration attorney. “We were approved in only two and a half weeks.”

Her advice? Work with a relocation specialist for housing, since finding a place quickly as an American without a local work contract can be challenging. 

Greece is not only a popular vacation spot, but also an appealing destination for remote workers seeking sunshine on the Mediterranean coast, a slower pace, and lower cost of living. If I ever decide to relocate, I’d move to Greece.

What most people don’t realize is that Greece offers two separate options for remote workers: a digital nomad visa and a digital nomad residence permit. You have to apply for the digital nomad visa, which grants a one-year stay, from your home country. But you can apply for the digital nomad residence permit, which is valid for two years, once you’re already in Greece. You’ll need to show proof of monthly income of at least €3,500, health insurance, and a rental contract or property ownership.

One of my podcast guests, Kathleen O’Donnell, 40, moved from Boston to Athens in 2022 and chose the residence permit. “It was such a relief not to have to fly back to the U.S. to apply,” she says. “The process took time, but it was worth it for the flexibility.”

While you can apply on your own, O’Donnell says she hired a lawyer, which “made the process much less stressful.”

The Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT) allows freelancers and self-employed U.S. citizens to live and work in the Netherlands by registering a new or existing business and depositing €4,500 into a Dutch business bank account. You can apply and get the ball rolling on your DAFT visa after arriving. Remote employees don’t qualify, meaning you can’t be a W-2 employee. 

Stacy Holt, 44, moved to the Netherlands with her family in 2023. “We sold everything, rented a house we’d only seen on video, and applied once we arrived,” she says. “It was definitely a stressful time, but within two months I had my residency card and my business registered.”

She tells me she moved for a better quality of life for her children, and to escape the stress of active shooter drills and future student debt for them. Her tip: Bring savings and patience, as housing can be difficult to secure without local rental history.

Albania may not be on your radar, but it’s becoming a popular soft-landing spot for Americans. It’s affordable, welcoming, and ideal if you want to “test-drive” life abroad without having to navigate complicated visa systems first.

U.S. citizens can stay in Albania for up to a year, visa-free. Those who want to stay longer can apply for a residence permit in-country.

Monica Miranda, 45, moved from Jersey City to Vlorë with her dog. She initially planned to stay a few months, but has now been there nearly two years. “Getting my residency was easier than I expected,” she says. “I hired a lawyer, submitted my documents, and received a provisional visa within a week.”

Cepee Tabibian is the founder of She Hit Refresh, a community and resource platform that helps women aged 30+ move abroad. She’s the author of ”I’m Outta Here! An American’s Ultimate Visa Guide to Living in Europe″ and host of the She Hit Refresh podcast. As the daughter of Colombian and Iranian immigrants, Cepee grew up in Houston, Texas, before becoming an immigrant herself in Spain. Follow her @shehitrefresh.

Want to stand out, grow your network, and get more job opportunities? Sign up today for Smarter by CNBC Make It’s new online course, How to Build a Standout Personal Brand: Online, In Person, and At Work. Learn how to showcase your skills, build a stellar reputation, and create a digital presence that AI can’t replicate.

Parenting is full of love and joy, but it also comes with a few hard truths we’d rather not face.

In my 10 years as a pediatrician, I’ve seen the same patterns again and again: Parents who want the best for their kids but sometimes miss what actually helps them thrive.

Some of these truths might sting a little, but they’re not meant to shame. They’re meant to help us reflect and hopefully, raise happier, healthier kids.

1. If you’re not modeling an action, behavior, or value, don’t expect them to do the same.

Kids copy what they see more than what they’re told. How you speak, handle stress, and make things right matters.

If you want them to learn kindness and respect, show it in action. I try to model this in the small, everyday moments — how I speak to employees at the grocery store, how I apologize if I lose my patience, how I talk about people when they’re not around. Kids catch that energy, fast.

2. If you always rescue them from boredom, they’ll never learn to be comfortable being idle.

Boredom is the spark for creativity. When every moment is filled with entertainment, kids lose the chance to explore their own ideas. Give them the space to figure it out. 

3. If you feel like your child is overscheduled, they are. Scale things back. 

When afternoons turn into a relay race between soccer, piano, and playdates, it’s a fast track to burnout … for everyone. Downtime gives their body and brain room to breathe. Protect it.

4. Set the bedtime. Keep the routine. Sleep is a necessity.

Sleep powers growth, learning, and emotional balance. Toddlers usually need about 11 to 14 hours, preschoolers 10 to 13, school-age kids 9 to 12, and teens 8 to 10. But these are just ranges. What matters most is how your child functions: If they wake up rested, don’t nod off at odd times, and aren’t showing signs of poor sleep like irritability or trouble focusing, they’re likely getting enough.

5. Seriously, stop the excessive snacking. That’s why they’re not eating meals.

When kids snack all day, they never build an appetite. If they don’t love their meal, they’ll simply hold out until snack time. Planning snacks so they’re predictable gives kids structure and time to feel hungry again, which encourages them to show up for meals.

6. You don’t need fancy ‘immune-boosting’ supplements.

The real immune boosters? Sleep, nutritious meals, hydration, physical activity, and washing hands. There’s no powder or gummy that can compete.

7. Stop asking for antibiotics just because a cough lingers.

Most coughs after a viral infection last for weeks. Extra antibiotics don’t speed healing. They just increase resistance and side effects.

Often, time and comfort care are key. I usually recommend keeping the air moist with a cool-mist humidifier, offering warm fluids like honey water (if over age 1), using saline and suction for congestion, and letting them rest.

Of course, you should always check in with a pediatrician, especially if things seem to be worsening.

8. Don’t use screens or food to calm every meltdown.

It’s tempting to reach for quick fixes, but distraction isn’t regulation. Kids need opportunities to practice coping skills like naming emotions, breathing, learning that these feelings will pass.

9. If your child goes to an Ivy League college but can’t handle disappointment, you’ve missed the point.

Academic success means little if a child crumbles under stress. Resilience, the skill of falling, learning, and trying again, is what truly prepares them for life. 

Parenting asks us to grow, too. These truths can sting, but awareness builds strong families. And again, it’s always important to keep a close relationship with your pediatrician and consult them before making any major changes to your child’s health routines.

Dr. Mona Amin is a board-certified pediatrician and founder of PedsDocTalk, a resource for modern parenting guidance. Featured in The New York Times, Time Magazine and NPR, she is known for helping parents navigate the joys and challenges of raising kids with confidence and clarity.

Black Friday sale: Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Get 25% off our most popular course of the year, How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work, with coupon code GETSMART. Offer valid Nov. 17 through Dec. 5, 2025.

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.

For many, the holiday season brings a confusing mix of emotions. What often feels like “the most wonderful time of year” for one person can be exhausting and anxiety-inducing for another.

Close to half, 41% of U.S. adults say they anticipate being more stressed out around the holidays this year than last year, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Healthy Minds Poll. And even more, 46%, are worried about finding and being able to afford holiday gifts.

Thirty-one percent of participants surveyed report feeling worried about being lonely. As more and more people report experiencing loneliness, experts say it’s important to be intentional about increasing the joy in your life — whether it be around the holidays or any time of year.

“The key to happiness is feeling loved and feeling connected to other people,” says happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky. That is also true in the face of elevated stress and anxiety.

Here Lyubomirsky offers up three simple acts that will make you feel more connected with others and closer to the people in your life. They are all “really powerful ways to be happier,” she says.

1. Have a conversation

A sure way to be happier is to connect with other people, Lyubomirsky says. And she believes that the No. 1 way to forge that connection is to have a conversation — with your partner, your kid, or even your barista.

The conversation doesn’t have to be a long one. Just 15 minutes is enough to reap the benefits, she says.

The key, she says, is to make sure you’re having a meaningful conversation and not a superficial one.

Lyubomirsky suggests sharing how you feel about a book you’ve just read or movie you’ve watched. You can also ask questions that are designed to push the conversation further, like “what’s the best thing that happened to you this year?” Or “what are you looking forward to in 2026?”

Make sure to listen intently when they speak, she says.

2. Practice gratitude

There are many benefits to practicing gratitude, including increased happiness. It’s a habit that Lyubomirsky recommends for those who want to feel happier and more connected to others.

This practice could look like calling up a loved one or sending a card in the mail to say “I was thinking of you,” Lyubomirsky says, and express how grateful you are for whatever role this person has played in your life.

It is a small but powerful gesture.

3. Perform an act of kindness

Research shows that performing acts of kindness or generosity is a sure way to feel happier. And anything you can do to make another person’s day easier works, Lyubomirsky says.

It can be a bigger gesture like helping a friend move or a small gesture like giving someone a compliment.

Black Friday sale: Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Get 25% off our most popular course of the year, How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work, with coupon code GETSMART. Offer valid Nov. 17 through Dec. 5, 2025.

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.

On a mild winter day in Arizona, 38-year-old Cami’s laundromat can teem with customers loading their clothes into washers and dryers, and employees working on laundry deliveries.

For Cami, running the business as her only job is a welcome change of pace, she says. She worked almost full-time as a nurse at a hospital while simultaneously running the laundromat from October 2020 to April 2023, when she quit nursing. (Cami requested to be identified by her nickname only, due to security concerns over her cash-heavy business. Her identity and the name of her business are known to CNBC Make It.)

“Now, I’m only working maybe five or six hours a week [running the laundromat],” says Cami. “But I also am hesitant in telling people that, because that’s not how it was five years ago, four or three years ago. I was working a lot more hours trying to grow this business.”

In that time, she hired employees — the laundromat employs six people, including one part-time worker — so she can “focus more on growing the business and not working in the business,” she says. Cami also spends about 10 hours per week creating and posting videos on social media about her business and the experience of running it, she notes.

DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to starting a business—everything you need to know to be your own boss

Cami’s laundromat brought in roughly $475,000 in revenue last year, plus nearly $30,000 in rent from a salon that operates next door, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. That included about $119,000 in profits — some of which went back into the business, and $66,000 of which became Cami’s salary, she says.

She also made about $22,000 from six months of social media posting in 2024, and is on track for a significant bump — “around $200,000” — in 2025, she says. And though she misses the camaraderie of the hospital, she enjoys the work-life balance and freedom she’s experienced with business ownership, she says.

“This is my first time where I’m able to be home for all the holidays, have every weekend off,” says Cami. “I never have to go to a boss or a manager to be able to take off on a random trip home or anything like that. So my freedom of time has been completely changed.”

After 13 years of working as a nurse, primarily in the bone marrow transplant unit of a large hospital, Cami was ready for a change, she says. She just didn’t want to re-enroll in school to do so. “And so I knew, really my only way out of working would be to own a business,” she says.

She looked into a couple ventures, including renting out storage units and buying a mobile home park. Then she saw a listing for the laundromat on bizbuysell.com, a marketplace for buying and selling small business.

A friend referred Cami to his uncle, who owned two laundromat locations himself, she says. “He looked at the numbers with me, and he said something that I will never forget. He said, ‘You know, if I could go back in time … I would never go to college. I would never get my master’s degree,’” says Cami. “He’s like, ‘All I would do is buy laundromats, because laundromats scream money.’”

Cami planned to buy a business for about a year before actually making a purchase, she says, and selling her house to help fund the expense was part of that plan. She sold her house for $310,000 in April 2020 and moved into a rental home, she says.

Because her mortgage wasn’t fully paid off, she received about $150,000 in equity from the transaction to put toward the $300,000 laundromat, she says. She took another $50,000 from her savings to make a $200,000 down payment on the laundromat in October 2020, she says.

“We seller-financed the remaining $100,000 with a 6% interest rate over the next two years,” says Cami, adding that she paid the loan off in about a year and a half. ”[Selling my house] wasn’t very scary. I was more excited about owning a business rather than owning a home.”

The laundromat had already been functioning for over 20 years and was “cash flowing,” says Cami. She put $20,000 toward renovations like new lighting, flooring and fresh paint to make it feel more “homey,” she says. She’s currently paying off two loans for washing machine purchases and two loans for vehicles for her laundromat’s pickup and delivery services, totaling “about $4,900 a month” in payments, she says.

As she ran the laundromat, she gradually decreased her hours per week at the hospital. She bought a new house in April 2023, she says.

At Cami’s laundromat, machine prices range from dryers that cost 25 cents per seven minutes to 80-pound washers that cost $12 per load. Laundry pickup and delivery prices vary depending on the job, too.

Cami didn’t have any prior leadership or business ownership experience, which was “the biggest learning curve,” she says. She says she listens to business podcasts, reads books and tries to attend “at least one or two laundromat conferences a year” to stay up-to-date on industry trends, software and technology.

One of the biggest lessons she’s learned, she says: Make money and use it to follow your passions outside your job, rather than pursuing a career around your passions. In her case, her passions are time with her loved ones and control over her schedule, she says: “My days are a lot smoother [that way].”

The average laundromat can generate cash flow between $15,000 and $300,000 per year, and can range in market value from $50,000 to more than $1 million, according to The Laundry Association. Cami estimates that she could potentially retire in about six or seven years, or maintain ownership and hire someone else to run the business.

She could also acquire a second location — buying someone else’s laundromat or starting from scratch — grow it and eventually sell it for a profit, she says.

“I see it as this fun game that I like playing,” says Cami. “I love the hustle of trying to learn more so I can scale it bigger and make it grow.”

Black Friday sale: Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Get 25% off our most popular course of the year, How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work, with coupon code GETSMART. Offer valid Nov. 17 through Dec. 5, 2025.

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.

Before your child even steps out the door every day, their emotional baseline for the day is already set — not by color-coded routines, but by how safe and connected they feel in your presence.

As a conscious parenting researcher, I’ve studied more than 200 kids, and I’m a mother myself. I’ve found that the happiest, most resilient kids are raised in homes where connection matters more than control, especially in the morning.

Parents who raise happy kids practice nine morning rituals to create emotional safety and support their children’s developing brain:

Before your child wakes up, take just 60 seconds to check in with yourself: Take a few deep breaths, a moment of stillness with your coffee, or a quick meditation.

Children learn how to be calm directly through our nervous systems. When you begin in a regulated state, you provide a sturdy emotional foundation for your child’s day.

Before asking about teeth-brushing or backpacks, create a moment of genuine connection, like eye contact, a warm smile, or physical touch. Your message should be: “You matter more than the morning rush.”

This brief emotional attunement regulates your child’s nervous system and sets the stage for cooperation and calm.

Integrate small rituals that slow the pace, like playing soft music during breakfast, sitting together without screens, or implementing a 30-second family huddle before heading out.

These micro-moments teach kids that calm is available even on busy mornings.

Even in the midst of spilled milk and mismatched socks, find opportunities for playfulness, like a silly voice, a 10-second dance party, or a shared inside joke.

Laughter reduces stress and reinforces that mistakes or morning mishaps don’t overpower emotional safety.

Before diving into the day’s logistics, pause to check in with how your child is feeling: “How’s your heart this morning?” or “What’s one thing you’re looking forward to today?”

These brief emotional check-ins build emotional literacy, which is one of the strongest predictors of lifelong resilience and happiness.

A morning hug, a forehead kiss, or a moment of snuggling releases oxytocin and increases emotional security.

Choose three specific moments in your morning routine where you’ll pause for intentional physical connection and affection, regardless of how rushed you feel. It’s one of the fastest, most effective ways to regulate a child’s nervous system.

Make mornings a device-free zone for both parents and children for at least the first 20 minutes of waking. No phones, tablets, or television.

This digital boundary creates space for natural conversation or even comfortable silence together.

Children live at a different pace than adults. That’s just their biology. I recommend adding five extra minutes to one morning transition and match your child’s pace.

When we slow our movements and expectations, we help regulate their nervous systems. What looks like “dawdling” is often a child’s natural rhythm: their brain processing the world at a developmentally appropriate speed.

Instead of rushing out with a quick “Let’s go,” pause for a real goodbye: eye contact, a hug, reassurance.

Then add a “connection bridge,” or something to look forward to later: “I can’t wait to hear about your science project tonight,” or “Let’s make pancakes tomorrow morning.”

Let go of the idea that every morning needs to be rushed, or that the day is in shambles because they didn’t finish their homework the night before. Focus on creating emotional safety. Even adopting one of these habits can help shift your child’s entire day and support healthier brain development.

Reem Raouda is a leading voice in conscious parenting and the creator of the BOUND and FOUNDATIONS journals, now offered together as her Holiday Emotional Safety Bundle. She is widely recognized for her expertise in children’s emotional well-being and for redefining what it means to raise emotionally healthy kids. Connect with her on Instagram.

Black Friday sale: Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Get 25% off our most popular course of the year, How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work, with coupon code GETSMART. Offer valid Nov. 17 through Dec. 5, 2025.

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.