A MAN has revealed how he went from being dirt poor and having to share baths with his siblings to making £200,000 a month.
Just a few years ago Justin Gilmore, 38, from Atlanta, US, was struggling but now has a several luxury homes, a fleet of sports cars and loads of fun tech toys.
As a teenager, his mum, Sandra, had to juggle two jobs to make ends meet but would still regularly see the power go as the family struggled to pay their bills.
In a bid to save on energy costs, she would fill up pots of water on a portable stove to bathe her three young kids each evening.
Justin said: "Don't get me wrong, my mum was a saint but times were tough.
"One thing that stands out for me is how my mum used a portable stove to heat water on whenever the power would go out, and we'd then pour it into the bathtub.
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"As a kid I just thought it was magic.
"Then I would get into the tub first because I was the eldest, followed by my younger brother and sister.
"It was a very difficult time but it has absolutely motivated me to do well in life."
Struggling to make ends meet, Sandra – who died in 2019 – would opt for cereal or a sandwich as a form of cheap dinner meals for the family.
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Justin's dad remained out of the picture until his late teens but the family would visit their grandparents twice a week in order to get fed.
Unfortunately, the struggles of his home life were echoed in his school life, with the teenager having been "written off" by teachers after getting expelled aged 15.
Eager to help his mum out, Justin took a £4-an-hour job at his local grocery store.
Just two years later, he was promoted to become the night manager.
DITCHED SUPERMARKET JOB
He later ditched the supermarket gig for his first entrepreneurial venture: selling pizzas out of the back of his car – sometimes flogging up 100 pizzas a day.
The real turning point in Justin's career however came when he became a parent himself to a little boy, Justin Jr, in 2004.
Ironically, the dad's millions would arrive in the form of ATMs.
The entrepreneur's business model was simple but effective; find a location that needs an ATM machine, offer free placement to the merchant and then negotiate a split and terms under contract.
He said: “In the simplest terms, we process transactions for companies who have our ATMs, connect the customer using it to their bank and we earn an 'interchange fee' for providing this service.
“This fee never comes out of our customer's pocket – their banks pay us."
In 2022, Justin has 600 ATMS, in addition to processing over 2000 ATMs for customers nationwide.
Now, he's planning his next move: Bitcoin ATMs.
The dad said: "There's no two ways about it, cryptocurrency is the future.
"And with my business, people will cut out the costs involved in getting their Bitcoin out of the blockchain and exchanging it."
BITCOIN ATMS
His Bitcoin ATMs hold the monopoly on turning real cash into cryptocurrency and vice versa via his website BTMmachines.com.
Having invested in ISO20022 tokens since 2017, Justin heralds this as the way forward for an increasingly cashless society.
More important than his success however, Justin takes comfort in the fact he can now provide for his family, including paying for his mum before her sad passing.
Justin added: "I'm really proud of how far I've come, but I also feel blessed that I was able to take care of my mum financially from 2011 until she passed away.
"My uncle and brother both work for me full-time, and my brother has his own route of ATMs too.
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"My family not only formed a part in making this happen, but now it's part of their lives.
"None of them will ever have to worry about heating or food ever again."