With tariffs creating economic uncertainty, many Americans are rethinking their emergency savings — and whether to keep some physical cash at home.

Not every financial planner thinks physical cash is essential, but some say it’s wise to keep a small amount on hand in case of power outages, natural disasters or payment disruptions.

“I would be comfortable with $500 to $1,000 in cash for unforeseen issues” like a hurricane, says Matthew Saneholtz, a certified financial planner at Tobias Financial Advisors in Florida.

Keeping $300 to $500 at home for emergencies or unexpected cash-only expenses is reasonable, says Crystal McKeon, CFP at TSA Wealth Management.

Keeping cash at home is “a personal choice,” says Melissa Caro, CFP and founder of My Retirement Network. While she says it can be “useful” in some situations, she cautions against relying too heavily on it.

“I wouldn’t go overboard with physical cash, since it’s not FDIC-insured and doesn’t earn interest,” Caro says. FDIC insurance, provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, protects your deposits up to $250,000 per account in the event that a bank or savings association fails.

There are other downsides, too. “It can be subject to loss, theft, destruction or even impulse,” says Nicole Sullivan, CFP and co-founder of Prism Planning Partners. “If you have a significant amount of physical bills on hand, you may be more tempted to spend on ‘extras’ that you otherwise would avoid.”

If you do keep cash at home, be discreet about it, says McKeon: “Even if you think these items are safely stored in a safe, spreading this information is likely to make you a target for thieves.”

Beyond a small stash of cash at home, now is a good time to revisit your emergency fund. Financial planners typically recommend saving three to six months’ worth of essential expenses in a checking or high-yield savings account — someplace accessible, but separate from your day-to-day spending.

But with greater economic uncertainty, you might want to extend those savings to as much as a year’s worth of expenses. “If you are in an industry with layoffs likely ahead … shoot for more like nine to 12 months,” Saneholtz says.

Still, many Americans fall short when it comes to emergency savings. About 42% have no emergency savings, and 40% couldn’t cover a $1,000 expense, according to a 2025 survey from U.S. News & World Report.

If you’re starting from zero, remember that having any sort of financial cushion is better than none. “If you start at $50, it’s more than you had last month,” McKeon says. From there, try to increase your savings as your budget allows, especially by trimming non-essential spending, she says.

For an initial goal, savings of $1,000 is useful “to have on hand to fix your car, to cover small repairs on the house and minor medical situations,” says McKeon.

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When I was pregnant with my first child, my mind was still in work mode. Since starting my company Bridesmaid for Hire in 2014, I’d often worked 70-hour weeks, traveled all over the country for business opportunities, and attached my identity to my hustle. I didn’t want any of that to change just because I was becoming a mom. 

I planned to take six weeks of maternity leave, lining up childcare and business gigs — working weddings and speaking at conferences — right afterward. 

But after my daughter was born in early 2023, I no longer craved being pulled in a dozen different directions. I still wanted to run my company, but I also wanted to spend quality time with my baby.

At first, I put in 40 to 50 hours a week when my daughter was sleeping during the day and when my husband came home from work. But as she grew out of the baby phase, parenting became more hands-on and I could only manage about half of it. 

I decided that I needed to shift how I was working so that I could still earn money while giving my daughter the attention she deserved. Today, I make about $6,300 a month in passive income. Here’s how I made it happen. 

As an entrepreneur, I constantly want to create new products and services. But with less time, I looked instead at how I could monetize the resources and foundations I already established.

For example, I put Google ads on my website, which had about 463,000 users in the last year. Traffic swings mean ad income varies. When I have ads turned on, I earn on average $391 per month, with zero hours of work involved. 

DON’T MISS: How to start a side hustle to earn extra money

This monetization method can diminish the user experience on your website and distract from your own messaging and products. So whenever I have a big product launch coming up, I turn off this revenue stream to focus on quality and conversions. 

I send out weekly newsletters to over 100,000 subscribers and post several times a week on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to over 90,000 social media followers. A lot of my content is centered around wedding and other suggestions and advice, so I use affiliate links.

Two programs I joined, Amazon Associates and RewardStyle, allow me to create curated storefronts and share links to those lists in my social media profile bios and newsletters. This takes about two hours a week.

If a person buys a product I’ve recommended (or other products on the same website) after clicking through my affiliate link, I receive a commission. The amount varies based on the platform, product, and other factors. The payout averages $129 a month.

Clients often hire me to write their maid of honor speeches. It’s a time-consuming process that takes five or six hours per speech. It wasn’t scalable and I frequently had to turn clients away because I didn’t have the bandwidth. Sometimes I said yes anyway. Just hours after giving birth, I sat in the hospital bed trying to finish drafting one.

I decided to team up with a developer who helped me build an AI maid of honor speech writing tool. He took over 200 speeches I’d composed and programmed the tool to replicate the writing style, format, and structure I used.

This allowed me to offer my service at a lower price point ($35 instead of $397) and scale it to work with an unlimited number of customers. In the past year, we’ve expanded to different types of wedding speeches and vows, and even created a similar tool for eulogies. 

These tools bring in an average of $5,380 a month. I usually spend around five hours a week working on marketing, writing SEO-related blog posts, and designing or filming social media content related to these tools. 

One of my first sources of passive income was an online course I launched in 2017. The idea came from a popular request I got from people wanting to start a wedding side hustle like mine. It took me a few weeks to write, film videos, and create the assignments.

I’ve since launched over a dozen courses, including one on public speaking and another on personal branding. They’re available on my website and I often promote them via social media and newsletters. I spend two to three hours a month updating my courses and creating content to market them. 

I also have three books and a newlywed card game. And early last year, I started monetizing my weekly newsletter. I offer a paid subscriber tier that comes with added benefits, like access to newsletter archives, surprise gifts in the mail, and free copies of my books. This takes only an additional hour of time a month to manage.

All together, these digital and physical products generate about $380 a month. 

These passive income streams allow my business to stay afloat and give me time to focus on the projects I’m most excited about, like new products and a podcast. 

Most of all, I don’t regret working less so I can spend more time with my toddler.

Jen Glantz is the founder of Bridesmaid for Hire, the author of ”Finally the Bride: Finding Love after Walking down Everyone Else’s Aisle,” and the creator of The Pick-Me-Up newsletter. Follow her adventures on Instagram @jenglantz.

Want to earn some extra money on the side? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Start a Side Hustle to learn tips to get started and strategies for success from top side hustle experts. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through April 1, 2025.

I’ve spent my entire career, as both an author and entrepreneur, studying how successful people work.

Many of us are taught to believe that we should always put 100% effort into everything we do. But while researching for my ninth book, “Time Anxiety,” I learned how damaging this mentality can be.

Doing less than your best may sound counterintuitive, especially if you grew up feeling pressured to get good grades and finish in first place in competitive activities.

But the most successful people know that it can actually be better for them in the long run to do significantly less, or just good enough.

I first learned of this concept from a viral thread by Heron Greenesmith, a policy attorney and advocate for LGBTQ rights. Here’s how they put it:

“Art? Do it poorly. School work? Do half rather than not doing it at all. Calling a friend? Text them if you’re afraid to call rather than not talking to them at all. Parenting? Literally just be there, even if you’re half asleep and on your phone.”

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Being a perfectionist is not always something to be proud of. Perfectionism is based on a belief system that can limit all kinds of important skills, such as the ability to complete simple tasks and move on or the ability to feel any sense of accomplishment.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, taking action is better than not taking action. It can help you move into a better place, so that you’re then able to make different choices next time.

Here are a few examples of how to use this method:

• Problem: You struggle to complete classwork. 
  Solution: Lower your standards. Turn in work that is less than amazing, and use the extra time to do something else. You don’t need perfect grades in every class.

• Problem: Your living space feels messy, but you’re exhausted. 
  Solution: Identify what really needs to be cleaned up. Do as much as you can (for those things only) for ten minutes. Once the time is up, stop cleaning and move on.

• Problem: You’re burdened with a huge pile of unread messages. 
  Solution: Delete all unread messages and start over. Instead of flailing about and trying to catch up, just try to do a better job with new messages going forward, at least for a while.

• Problem: You haven’t returned a phone call. 
  Solution: It happens. Don’t worry about it. You can always resume the conversation later if it’s important.

Not everything requires a full level of engagement. Instead, figure out the minimally acceptable solution for whatever you’re stuck on, then move on to bigger things. 

Doing things poorly might also allow you to focus on the few things that really matter, perhaps doing an even better job with those. When in doubt, let go and move on.

Chris Guillebeau is the New York Times bestselling author of “The $100 Startup,” “Side Hustle,” and “The Happiness of Pursuit,” which have sold over one million copies worldwide. During a lifetime of self-employment that included a four-year commitment as a volunteer executive in West Africa, he visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday.

Do you want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

This is an adapted excerpt from the book ″Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live″ by Chris Guillebeau. Copyright © 2025 by Chris Guillebeau. Published with the permission of Crown Currency.

Erim Kaur, entrepreneur and influencer, made $4 million in sales after founding a hair-oil brand rooted in ancient Indian traditions.

London-based Kaur has over 700,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined, and founded ByErim in 2019 — a luxury haircare brand known for its flagship hair growth oil containing eight pure oils, including Amla, Argan, Coconut, and Castor oil. It has raked in £3.3 million ($4.2 million) since its launch, CNBC Make It has verified.

The 30-year-old pinned the popularity of her hair growth oil on having social media savvy and building a core audience of young Indian women and men turning to her for beauty and life advice.

“I think one of the strongest messages I’ve always had has been that I want to do it for girls or boys that have grown up without a mum and sisters,” Kaur told CNBC Make It in an interview about the popularity of her content.

Kaur was only eight when her mother died of breast cancer, and a memory she always cherished was her mother’s long hair, which she said was a defining part of her identity.

“I really wanted to emulate the way that my mother looked,” she said. “It was scary to see her lose the identifying part of what people saw as something that contributes so heavily to her beauty.”

Kaur recalled that her father, who was only 29 at the time, took her to the barber’s for a haircut. “I didn’t even know how to tie my hair. She died before she taught me,” Kaur said.

That was when she decided to turn to her paternal grandmother, who would apply different oils and ingredients on her hair through her early teens, before landing on a formula that Kaur continued to use as an adult and is the current formulation of the ByErim oil.

Those experiences formed the foundations of Kaur’s social media journey, where she shared her story of growing up without a mum, as well as how she learnt to take care of herself as a woman.  

“I wanted to create a shortcut for any girls or boys that had grown up without a mum, which is why I started to speak about that experience on my page,” she explained.

After gaining 100,000 followers in 2019, she decided to monetize her social media and build ByErim as a homage to both her mother and grandmother while also capitalizing on a growing social media trend.

Hair oiling is an Indian tradition recorded in ancient Sanskrit medicinal texts like Charaka Samhita, and passed on through the centuries. Indian women are taught by their mothers and grandmothers to massage oils into their hair from a young age.

With the influx of Indian immigrants to the U.S. and Europe since the 20^th century, hair-oiling has transcended India’s borders.

Cosmopolitan U.K.’s deputy beauty editor Hanna Ibraheem recently wrote that having her hair oiled as a child resurfaced memories of shame about her identity.

“I’d noticed my peers would get teased for their oiled hair on the school playground. Sure, the oil made my hair soft and strong. I know it’s the reason I have healthy hair today. But at the time, I found the whole thing … well, embarrassing,” Ibraheem said in a piece for the magazine.

Once a marker of shame for many children of South Asian immigrants, hair oiling has filtered into beauty trends on social media.

The hashtag #hairoil has almost half a million posts on TikTok, with mainstream influencers sharing their oiling routines, including what hair oils they use and application techniques.

Tips on hair oiling have made the pages of Vogue in recent years, and a range of brands have surfaced alongside Kaur’s ByErim, including Nikita Charuza’s Ayurveda-inspired Squigs Beauty, Akash and Nikita Mehta’s Fable & Mane, and Kuldeep Knox’s Chāmpo.

“How funny is it that ‘to oil’ never used to be a verb that was in everyone’s daily communication but then this morning I was going to my grandparent’s and I was going to say ‘can you oil my hair for me?’ Back in the day, it would have been people from England saying ‘would you mind putting oil into my hair, or would you mind applying oil to my scalp?’ But it’s now a verb,” Kaur said.

Unlike traditional Indian oiling, which includes the use of greasy, thick oils with a pungent odor, the appeal of brands like ByErim is that it’s fragranced and lightweight, Kaur said.

“I have it in my hair right now. Could you ever tell? I could go to Tesco. I could go to the gym. I could go for dinner with my hair like this,” she said.

Kaur says ByErim’s success isn’t just about the rising popularity of hair oiling but because her followers are “emotionally invested” in her brand.

“Influencers cast a very wide net, but the problem is when you’re trying to reach people who don’t already follow you, you’re alienating the people that do. So, I was very focused on my followers. They’re focused on me,” Kaur said.

Influencer-founded brands have increased in recent years, but not all are cut out for success. Famous influencer brands range from TikTok darling Addison Rae’s makeup line Item Beauty to Instagrammer Arielle Charnas’ clothing brand, Something Navy.

However, Rae’s Item Beauty was discontinued by Sephora in 2023, with Rae failing to promote the brand consistently. Meanwhile, Something Navy faced financial troubles and stopped selling clothes through its website.

“People can sniff out authenticity, and they can sniff out fake very quickly,” Kaur explained. “If your followers really genuinely love you and would support you, they don’t want to feel like they’ve been palmed off with a quick, cheap product that just has your name on it.”

She sets herself apart by sharing the highs and lows of building ByErim on social media, from posting about factories accepting her orders to packaging ByErim bottles by hand.

“So by the time I launched it, people were buying regardless because they wanted to be part of that journey,” she said.

The company, which sold 250 units in its first four hours of launching and another 500 units in January 2020, has played a part in keeping the hair-oiling trend alive.

“I can’t take full credit for anything,” Kaur said of the normalization of hair-oiling. “I think there are some amazing brands out there that are pushing the needle when it comes to sharing what was a secret of our grandma’s kitchen to the masses, but I would like to hope that ByErim has played even a 1% part of that.”

For many adults, becoming a parent is all-consuming. Familial obligations monopolize your attention and even the strongest, most long-term friendships can feel strained.

Ironically, those deep friendships we have in adulthood, the ones that take a backseat to family, are crucial contributing factors to raising resilient kids, journalist Jennifer Breheny Wallace said in a recent Ted Talk.

“A child’s resilience is rooted in the resilience of the adults in their lives,” she said. “Adult resilience is rooted on the depth and support in our relationships.”

Wallace authored “Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It” and the forthcoming “Mattering in the Modern World: A Solution to the Crises of our Time.”

A child witnessing you support a friend, or vice versa, shows them that part of resilience is creating a network where it’s OK to ask for help.

Wallace’s advice touches on a haunting reality about adult friendships: Americans have less of them than they’d like.

Less that one-third of adults ages 30 to 49 say they have five or more close friends, according to a 2023 survey by Pew Research Center. And in a 2023 University of Michigan poll, 34% of adults ages 50 to 80 say they feel isolated.

And it’s not just the quantity of positive social connections that’s lacking, it’s the quality: 40% of American adults said they are not as close with their friends as they would like, according to a recent PLUS ONE study.

When journalist Olga Khazan was deciding to have a child, one of her biggest concerns was how antisocial she was.

As an introvert, she often turned inward and stayed home rather than putting in the work to maintain relationships in the real world, an experience she outlines in her book “Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change.”

“Being a parent just requires being ‘on’ all the time,” Khazan told CNBC Make It. “You kind of have to learn to be okay with being really active and socially engaged, even in a nonverbal way, a lot more than you’re used to.”

To prepare her for parenthood she wanted to increase her extroversion. She found that the most successful strategy for doing so was signing up for improv and sailing classes.

“I think the most effective thing is to sign up for an activity that occurs regularly with the same group of people,” she said. “It is hard to back out of because other people are relying on you.”

Though sailing was expensive and started much earlier in the morning than she preferred, the social interactions that came with showing up did improve her quality of life.

“You’re working on something, or thinking about something, and someone else in the boat will have had that exact experience and can really shed light on it,” she says.

Forcing herself to do things even when she didn’t feel like it made her less cranky and more agreeable while parenting. And being more comfortable talking to others about the challenges of child-rearing made the experience a bit less lonely.

“I am just not really a joiner naturally,” she says. “I never joined a group before this, but I think I learned that things like this, especially really hard things like motherhood, are so much easier when you have other people around going through something similar.”

Despite the proven benefits positive social relationships have on our well-being, American culture still doesn’t rank friendships as highly as romantic partnerships.

The only way to change this, Wallace said, is to actively prioritize friendships.

“We need one or two or three people in our lives who know us intimately. who can see when we are struggling and who will reach over and put that oxygen mask on for us,” she said. “This is a very different level of support than we normalize in our busy culture today.”

Do you want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Pre-register today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.