If you’re considering a political candidate, it makes sense to examine their record on fiscal issues and how their policies have affected their constituents’ finances. But what about the candidate’s personal finances?

Such are the conversations surrounding Minnesota governor and vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz. Walz and his wife Gwen earned about $300,000 in 2023, according to documents shared with the Wall Street Journal. His Republican rival, Senator J.D. Vance, disclosed 2022 income between $1.2 and $1.3 million.

Even more interestingly, Walz told the Journal that he made a roughly $135,000 early withdrawal from a workplace retirement account last year to fund his daughter’s college education. It’s a move that financial advisors would tend to steer most clients away from.

“Most of the time, it’s not advisable,” says Gerika Espinosa, a certified financial planner with DMBA in Salt Lake City, Utah. “Because people are doing it at the expense of their own retirement and then their retirement suffers. And then it’s kind of a lose-lose situation.”

For Walz, $135,000 represents a relatively small chunk of what he can expect to earn in retirement. The Wall Street Journal estimates the Walzes’ retirement savings at more than $1 million, meaning that the early withdrawal likely represented somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of the retirement fund.

What’s more, Walz’s situation is a little different than most Americans’. He can expect ample pension income in retirement thanks to his years working as a teacher, national guardsman and politician — some of which he’s already collecting. Of Walz and his wife’s roughly $300,000 in 2023 income, about $135,000 came from pensions or annuities.

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Walz’s work history means that his retirement picture looks like a bit of a throwback, says Jamie Bosse, a certified financial planner and senior advisor at CGN Advisors in Manhattan Kansas.

“When I first got into financial planning, they taught us that retirement spending was a three-legged stool. You could rely on pensions, Social Security and your personal savings,” she says.

Nowadays, with many pension plans frozen or eliminated and worries mounting about the future stability of Social Security, “that stool is really like a pogo stick,” says Bosse. “Now more than ever, your future financial independence is directly related to your ability to save a portion of your income for retirement.”

In other words, Walz’s move isn’t ideal for anybody. But it’s especially dangerous for the majority of Americans who will have to rely heavily on their investments to fund their retirement.

For most people, an early withdrawal from a retirement plan is a risky move. For one, anything that you withdraw from a retirement account is money that doesn’t get a chance to grow at a compounding rate. Whether it represented a big portion of the Walzes’ income or not, that $135,000 is money that isn’t working for their retirement.

“Taking money out of your retirement accounts to use for something else means, by definition, that money won’t be available for retirement,” says Yusuf Abugideiri, a CFP and chief investment officer at Yeske Buie in Vienna, Virginia. “You’re putting yourself in a really challenging position in most cases”

What’s more, taking money from a retirement account is expensive. Money you withdraw from a 401(k)-type account is taxed as regular income. Plus, take the money out before age 59½, and you’ll generally incur a tax penalty on whatever you withdraw.

A withdrawal may seem worth it to fund something like a child’s education — which can seem like a much more pressing need than retirement, says Bosse. But it’s a move that severely limits your financial flexibility, she says.

“The reality is, there are options for paying for college. The student can work. There’s a lot of colleges that offer tuition aid if you work for the college. There are work study programs. There are loans,” she says. “There’s not as many options when you’re retired and you run out of money. You can’t get a loan for retirement.”

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Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has spent the past couple decades warning the general public about ominous issues, from upcoming “climate disasters” to devastating cyberattacks.

Two potential catastrophes evoke the most concern from Gates. “A lot of unrest” in today’s world could spark “a major war,” he tells CNBC Make It. And even “if we avoid a big war … then, yes, there will be another pandemic, most likely in the next 25 years.”

Scientists typically view pandemics as likely, even inevitable, occurrences over time. They are indeed becoming more common, due to factors like climate change and population growth, research shows.

For Gates and other global health advocates, the question isn’t whether another pandemic will occur soon — it’s whether nations will be more prepared than they were for the outbreak of Covid-19. “The country that the world expected to lead and be the model fell short of those expectations,” Gates says, referring to the United States.

Gates wrote a book called “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic” in 2022, in which he called out various governments, including the U.S., for not being adequately prepared in 2020. In the book, he laid out several recommendations for countries worldwide, including stronger quarantining policies, investing in disease monitoring and boosting vaccine research and development.

While some progress has been made, with increased spending on pandemic preparedness in the U.S. and elsewhere, Gates says the global response hasn’t yet been enough. “Although some of the lessons from [the coronavirus] pandemic have been learned, [it’s been] way less than I would expect, sadly,” he says.

The political divisions many believe hampered the world’s response to Covid-19 are still standing in the way of preparing appropriately for the next outbreak, Gates adds: “Getting our thoughts together about what [we did] well, what we didn’t do well, is still not happening …. Perhaps, in the next five years, that’ll get better. But, so far, it’s quite surprising.”

Preventing widespread disease is the focus of an episode in the upcoming Netflix docuseries “What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates,” set to premiere September 18.

In an advance screening of the Netflix series provided to Make It, Gates sits down with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In that conversation, Fauci is adamant that the wealthiest nations, like the U.S., have a “moral responsibility” to share their abundant resources to lead the way on preventing the spread of disease around the world.

Fauci published a memoir this summer called “On Call,” in which he expressed his concerns over how the world is facing a “crisis of truth” over rampant misinformation, such as the kind that shook the public’s faith in public health initiatives.

The scientist struck a more optimistic tone in a July interview with People, in which he said he believes that public trust of scientific facts will eventually be restored.

“I still feel as somewhat of a cautious optimist that there are the better angels in everybody that will come out,” Fauci said.

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Timothy Armoo, a co-founder and former CEO of influencer marketing firm Fanbytes, is not what you might expect from a multi-millionaire.

He doesn’t own any mansions — or property at all — saying he prefers to spend some of his money on eclectic investments, ranging from exotic fruit businesses in Africa to funding the sale of a lithium mine.

Armoo made his money selling Fanbytes to digital marketing agency Brainlabs in May 2022 for an eight-figure sum (the exact amount has not been made public).

But the young entrepreneur told CNBC Make It that he felt “almost too crippled to spend the money” after growing up poor in public housing in south London.

Describing what he called a “scarcity mindset” that he developed growing up, Armoo said: “I was convinced that if I started to spend the money, it would all start to go.”

“I would track it every week, maybe twice a week,” he said. “I had this spreadsheet where I would track to the penny how much I had.”

Armoo knew he had to find a way to come to terms with the fact that he was now wealthy, and wasn’t about to lose it all — so he called his bank. “I said: ‘I would like to come and take out a million pounds in cash.'”

After various checks, Armoo collected the cash from the bank and took it home in a big bag. He then spread it all out over his bed.

“I just looked at it,” he said. “The reason I did that was that I wanted to make it very visceral to me that: ‘Dude, if all else fails, if you spend everything on gambling, or you spend it on crypto, or something bad, at the very least, you have a million pounds in cash.'”

Armoo said he invests his money in index funds — passive funds that track an index, such as the S&P 500 — and owns a variety of stocks including Shopify and Cloudflare.

“So I basically have two camps: one is the extremely safe bucket: index funds, overweight cash, bonds and guilt and treasuries. Then the other side of things is completely exotic.”

Some of Armoo’s more unusual investments include financing avocado, soybean, and mango businesses in Kenya, Angola and Tanzania, which supply supermarkets in Europe.

He also admitted he gets involved in “random stuff” and “alternative investments” such as buying uranium and funding the sale of a lithium mine.

“I enjoy the game of finding different arbitrages and different cool ways to spend, and invest the money, as opposed to ‘we’re just going to put it all in index funds,'” he added.

Most wealthy people love to invest in real estate, but not Armoo.

“I actually don’t own a house. I didn’t get involved in any residential property or any direct commercial property,” he said.

“Most people see property as their way of building wealth, but I use businesses as my way of building wealth and I don’t have a family, I don’t have a partner now, so why?”

Armoo said he expects more younger millionaires to make this choice, rejecting property in favor of being able to travel and move around more. “I probably only spend maybe half the year in London,” he said.

And unlike his peers, he’s less inclined to buy extravagant things.

“I’m generally quite a minimalist person,” he said. The one example he gave of a “flashy” purchase was first-class flights to Bali for him and his now ex-girlfriend. “That was cool. I remember thinking: ‘Yo, this is gangster.'”

The young millionaire emphasized that sometimes it’s good to reject the traditional way of doing things.

“I think there’s actually a bigger point here, which is to examine the rules that you live your life by. You should examine them and say: ‘Well, why should I do this? Why should I choose this career? Why should I invest my money in this way?” he said.

“You should really examine those rules, because if not, you’re going to wake up later on and realize that you’ve lived your life by someone else’s rules.”

Adriane Schwager has interviewed thousands of people and hired hundreds in her roughly 20 years in the recruiting space.

She’s interviewed candidates at every level in an organization, from interns to senior leaders to join her in the C-suite. Schwager, the CEO and co-founder of GrowthAssistant, a hiring platform, says her most important piece of advice applies to people at any experience level: Show up prepared.

It sounds simple enough, but she says she’s noticed that candidates’ level of preparedness seems to have declined in the last five years or so.

“I’m actually shocked at how many times people don’t do their homework,” Schwager tells CNBC Make It. “Here’s something very basic that I’m seeing candidates missing right now, which is [understanding]: What does the company that you’re interviewing for do?”

Schwager says she’d often give that advice — research what the company does — to college students approaching their first jobs. “But I feel like I’m seeing more of that these days at a senior level, which is interesting,” she says.

Her hypothesis is that this tends to happen when she speaks with candidates who have come to her company through a third-party recruitment agency. “Either they’re not reading the prep, or maybe they weren’t even looking for the role,” she says. But, by the time it comes to an interview, she advises doing some research to express your engagement in the opportunity, otherwise it can be a big waste of time.

Gearing up for the interview doesn’t have to take too much time. Schwager says it’s a plus when a candidate mentions something from her LinkedIn, X profile or other information about the business at the top of an interview.

“That immediately makes me think that the candidate is engaged and starts the conversation off on a very nice note,” she says.

If you want to go above and beyond, you might get in contact with any mutual connections you have with your interviewer for feedback on what they’re like as a colleague or manager.

One of her most recent leadership hires went the extra mile by listening to podcast interviews that Schwager participated in.

Finally, for some companies, don’t discount reaching out directly to the top boss to express your interest in a role. Schwager says some of her most enthusiastic hires have been people who’ve contacted her directly on social media to express interest in joining her company.

“They know so much [about] why they’re applying” and “are always engaged,” she says.

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As a new school year begins, I reminisce about unwrapping fresh school supplies and reuniting with friends after a summer apart.

But I’m also reminded of the time I wasted obsessing over my grades.

It’s my biggest regret from college: I don’t wish I worked harder or studied more — I wish I cared less about my GPA.

I attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, a small private school that sits on the shores of Lake Michigan and is known for its academic rigor. 

In high school, I had my heart set on attending Medill, Northwestern’s illustrious journalism program, and fulfilling my childhood dream of becoming a writer and editor.

Friends, teachers and guidance counselors warned me that, with its acceptance rate of 10% at the time, Northwestern would be a “reach school” for me, but I brushed off their pessimism. 

Once I got accepted into my dream school, instead of feeling relieved, I had an anxious pit in my stomach — it was like my body realized the imposter syndrome I’d feel once I stepped foot on campus before my mind caught up.

Since no one expected me to get into Northwestern, I wanted to prove I belonged there and I thought the best way to do so would be by excelling academically.

Once I started classes, if I received less than an A minus on an assignment or test, I panicked, convinced that someone in the admissions office would realize I was a fraud. 

When I was 18, I considered stress to be a badge of honor, evidence that I was hard-working and intellectual. Friends joked that the library would be the first place they checked if I ever went missing.

It was funny until it wasn’t: During a particularly bad spell of burnout, I pulled an all-nighter and booked a last-minute plane ticket home to New Jersey just so I could hug my mom and sleep in my childhood bedroom for 12 uninterrupted hours. 

Research has shown that this relentless pressure to succeed, often measured by letter grades or a GPA, can contribute to students being sleep-deprived, anxious or depressed.

More than 80% of 2024 college graduates experienced symptoms of burnout at some point during their undergraduate career, according to an August 2023 Handshake report.

I pushed myself to an unsustainable limit during those first two years of college, falling asleep during lectures, skipping meals and isolating myself from my friends. And yet, my grades were never better.

I finished one academic period with straight A’s, but I was too tired to celebrate.

Halfway through my sophomore year, I seriously considered transferring out of Northwestern.

I started dabbling in more self-care practices to help cope with the academic burnout — journaling, taking long walks by the lake when my mind was fried — but found it nearly impossible to disentangle my self-worth and mood from my grades.

When I returned to campus for my junior year, I made a promise to myself: As long as I tried my best, I would not beat myself up over a “bad” grade. It took me a while to adjust to the new mindset, but by my senior year, my academic stress reduced from a boil to a simmer.

The sacrifices I made to get near-perfect grades seemed worth it when I graduated from Northwestern with honors in 2019. 

I added my final GPA — 3.82 — to the top of my resume, sure that it would help me skip the line of other qualified candidates, a proof point of my work ethic. 

But in the dozens of job interviews I did in the weeks leading up to graduation, not a single person asked about my GPA. 

My potential bosses and colleagues were far more interested in the projects I worked on during my summer internship, the skills I learned in the clubs I joined, how I spent my free time and what I wanted out of a career. 

Within six months of graduating, at the tail-end of my first post-grad internship, I took my GPA off my resume — a move that felt liberating, albeit a bit disappointing.

Most employers won’t check your GPA unless they’re hiring for an entry-level job where candidates may not have much experience, Chelsea Jay, a career and leadership coach, tells CNBC Make It.

Companies are increasingly adopting a more holistic approach to hiring recent college graduates, where soft skills, internships, volunteer experiences, extracurriculars and work samples are given equal or more weight to grades.

“You shouldn’t slack off, but I tell students, if you can aim for having a 3.0 GPA or higher, that’s great,” says Jay. “You want to show employers that you’re motivated and capable of learning different subjects without burning yourself out.”

There are some employers in more competitive or technical industries that do care about GPA, including education, finance, health, law and tech fields. And if you’re planning on getting a postgraduate degree, like going to law or medical school, your GPA will be an integral part of your admission decision. 

But your GPA won’t make or break your career. 

“Your energy is better spent gaining relevant work experience and building relationships with people working in your field,” says Jay. “Those are better predictors of success … your GPA doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.”

People with B’s and C’s on their transcripts can still land their dream jobs. Accidentally sleeping through an exam doesn’t mean you can’t get into your top-choice law school.

If I could go back and give my 18-year-old self one piece of advice, I would tell her not to hinge her self-worth or confidence on a letter grade, that in five years, it won’t matter that you tanked your economics final or turned in a paper with a typo.

Instead, you’ll remember the new friends you laughed with and learned from, the professors who inspired you to chase a new dream and the moments that made you feel passionate and alive. Those, I believe, will do more for your career prospects than a 4.0 ever could.

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.

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