How I Retired Early (Steal My Plan) | Mark Tilbury

0:00If I told you that you'd never retire, everything is getting more expensive and then I'll cover the terrifying truth about retirement. I was head in hands realizing that I'd cripple myself financially for the next year. That would lead me to revealing how I escaped, retired early and how you can turn. My eyes were really opened up to the possibilities to make a massive income, but there's a problem. The system is rigged against you. The worst thing I've always known really wanted to talk about money. It was so taboo. Hi guys, it's Mark, so I've got some news for you. Retiring with enough money to enjoy the rest of your life, sitting on a beach, sipping on whatever your heart desires is becoming near enough impossible. Every year consumer debt rises, owning a home becomes more challenging and everything is getting more expensive. This combined with supply chain shortages that rush a new crane war and an outdated school system is a recipe for disaster. Let me take you back to 1902 when one of the richest men in history, John Rockefeller, created the school system as we know it today.

1:05As you can probably imagine, this system wasn't created to help people become rich and successful like him. Oh no, no, no. It was invented to create a nation of workers. You see, Rockefeller was an oil tycoon that needed an army of people that worked hard and didn't ask questions. So what better way to achieve his goal than funneling kids down a controlled path with little individual treatment, strict deadlines and teaches him false in the rules? When I was at this school, I had no idea that becoming an entrepreneur following my dreams was even possible. My teachers never really understood me, which meant I found school extremely boring. The worst thing I've always wanted to talk about money was so taboo. After leaving this place, I initially went down the car patrol route making wooden trash cans for only a few dollars an hour.

2:08This probably sounds all too familiar and this broken system is the main reason why people can't retire. I'm not bashing schools or even the teachers, but the fact the school still doesn't teach basic money management, investing or even building a credit school is just crazy to me. So you turn 18 and leave school with little understanding of how money works and look for a job only to find 70% of jobs never get listed. Meaning it's not what you know, it's who you know. This makes finding a job all the more difficult. But none of that really matters because slimy credit card companies are putting pre-approval letters through our doors given us instant access to cash at 40% interest rates. With no consideration of the fact that the majority of the population don't know what APR even means, let's learn how to use a credit card correctly. As you can probably tell, that really grinds my gears. Because of this, it's no surprise that consumer debt is over $15 trillion and rising almost every year.

3:09The world is changing so fast that school probably couldn't keep up even if it tried. Bitcoin was created in 2009 and it's only now becoming something people talk about as an investment. Even though it's been the best performing asset of the last decade, it's very difficult to get ahead and save money with low income, especially at the moment with 8.3% inflation and supply chain shortages. It's not a coincidence that fuel and utility bills are at record breaking highs and the people are feeling this hit more than ever. So the system is clearly rigged against you. However, I came from nothing and escaped and so can you. This might look like a normal train to you. However, this is the exact spot I sat when I had a revelation about money that would change my life forever. After leaving school at 16, I got a job as a cop to apprentice. That required me to commute on the train every day. I remember one morning looking around the carriage at all the passengers both young and old and I noticed they had one thing in common. They all look miserable.

4:10It was clear that not a soul was looking forward to going to work. It was almost like being on a ghost train full of slaves. I felt sorry for them until I realised that I too was wearing the same unhappy expression. I was one of them. But why was I so unhappy? Well, it all boiled down to my finances. Although it's a very popular saying that money doesn't make you happy, I think that was probably said by someone that has never been broke. Money certainly gives you freedom and the lack of freedom was the main reason why all of us were so unhappy on the train that day. I was only getting paid $2 an hour and from that I had to pay $15 per week for my train ticket and a fair of a $15 to my mum for rent. I had very little left at the end of the week. I thought to myself, why am I working so hard and still getting nowhere? Then I realised I'd taken my eye off the ball. I was getting so wrapped up and going through the motions and doing what I was told that I'd forgotten to manage my money correctly and set goals. When people don't have solid financial goals,

5:12they turn into mindless zombies, living for the weekend and never getting ahead. This is when I discovered a Times 25 role, although it probably wasn't called that back then. I pictured what my perfect life would look like and then how much money I would need to live like that per year. I then multiplied that by 25 which gave me my freedom figure. This is the amount of money I'd need saved so that I could fund my life while we've drawn 4% from my investments per year. This is something everyone should do, is it really put things into perspective for me? I became obsessed with doing everything I could to make progress towards this number. I used to do lots of overtime. This is because over 12 hours I got paid double my usual rate. My friends always used to work just a 9 to 5 job and then go down the pub. They never desired any extra income as they didn't have a solid freedom figure. I also started tracking all of my income and outgones with a pad and pen. Nowadays there's lots of different apps that can help you with this.

6:13But here's the best part of all. I no longer felt like a slave as I had a clear direction and an escape plan. But things weren't plain sailing from then. A few months later I was on this very roadside. I was heading hands realizing that I'd cripple myself financially for the next year. You see, I was young and I wanted a nice car. So I bought a green Volkswagen Golf because everyone said it would be a good idea. Don't get me wrong, a VW Golf is a great car and I loved it. But the issue is I took out a loan for the car which had a really high interest rate. This kind of purchase is typically always a bad investment. I didn't care about this at the time. Well, until I was stood at this roadside with a blown up engine. This left me in a right state because I still had monthly car payments to make. And now I had a $1,200 bill on top to repair the engine. I'm thankful for moments like this one as it's the hard life lessons that make you realise something has to change. I had car loans, repair bills, credit card debt and more at the time.

7:15So I thought outside of the box and decided to use what is now known as the debt avalanche method. The idea is you use your paycheck to make the minimum payments on every single bit of debt you have. Then use the remainder of your spare cash to pay the debt with the highest interest rate. Rinse in and repeating this method and taking one step at a time is the most effective way to clear debt fast and can also save your fortune by clearing the highest interest rates first. It took me a whole year of using this method to get back on my feet but I'm glad I put that chapter behind me. I then bumped into a man right here in this very field who would change my life forever. As a youngster it's so easy to get complacent about retirement. Look I get it when you're 20 or even younger. It's not that easy to get excited about retiring at 65. If that sounds like you then don't worry. I was exactly the same however I was very fortunate because the man I met on this model flyer field became a role model to me. I didn't even know he was my mentor.

8:16During casual chats he managed to completely change my mindset by swapping the word retirement with the word freedom. This really resonated with me as I've always changed freedom over materialistic things like cars and drips. With my eyes set on freedom I knew I had to begin investing long term and start building my wealth so I opened a pension account and began investing 10% of my standard wage. Of course nowadays you'd open up a Roth IRA if you're in the USA or stocks and shares ISO if you're in the UK. These are essentially investing accounts that allow you to grow your money over time completely tax-free. However there are limits on the amount you can deposit because otherwise there just be two powerful. Investing 10% of my income was a huge step in the right direction. It shifted my focus towards not only making more money but having my money produce more income. By the way if you want to start investing then public.com are currently giving you a free stock slice work between three and a thousand dollars when you use my link in the description.

9:16It's a great way to kickstart your investing journey. So at this point I was debt-free and I was also invested but I was still working every hour under the sun for other people but I couldn't shift this niggling feeling that I was made for more. Throughout my life I'd get glimpses of how the other side lived. Like when I used to walk past this mansion on the way to school when I was a kid all installing staircases in beautiful houses eventually it became just too much to ignore. I remember the clear breaking point. I'd been slogging my guts out all day. I took a brief pause to catch my breath and in that moment I looked up. Above me I could see the senior managers working at their desk jobs. They were clearly getting paid more than me but it looked like they weren't working nearly as hard. That's when it hit me that you're not paid based on how much effort you put into a job. Be that physical or mental. You're purely paid on the value that you provide and nothing else. No matter how hard I worked there was only so many products I could produce in a day

10:18and that was the extent of my value. As an apprentice I was also easily replaceable if I started slacking. That was the secret that separated me from the really rich. So I started taking steps to improve in other areas. This led me to winning the Wilkshire Leadership Award which helped me stand out as a person that could add more value to the business. However my manager didn't like that I was improving myself and felt a bit threatened. This led to him bullying me and ultimately I decided to leave my job. But that job was never going to let me retire early. The current retirement age varies depending on when you were born but for the most part it's the ripe old age of 67 and plans are already in place to raise this. Now if you're subscribed to this channel I know that retiring at an old age is definitely not in your plan. So let's look at exactly how you can beat the system and strike it big. My eyes were really opened up to the possibilities to make a massive income in a humble model shop. In my 20s I decided to follow my dreams and started working in a radio

11:21control model shop just like this one. This is a huge passion of mine and one of the best ways to make money is from a hobby because it never feels like work. While working in the model shop I was like a sponge I was soaking up every bit of experience that I could. I probably annoyed everyone in the shop with how many questions I asked and I just didn't care. Armed with all this knowledge I took the plunge and purchased my own shop using a bank loan. I was young and naive and had no idea how to run a business. All I knew was I had to sell something for more than I paid for it. It's quite funny reflecting on this actually. At the end of the first day of trading I opened up the tilt and was greeted by the most money I'd ever seen in person before. It really drove home to me the value of what I was doing and motivated me to keep going. It's safe to say in my 20s I was living, eating and breathing business. If I was out I was at a networking event or an exhibition to expand my business. I'm so glad I made the sacrifices I did as it really helped set my family up for life. If you want to do the same and even retire early then you need to deliver

12:26value on a mass scale. The most achievable way to do this is to start a side hustle and eventually transition that into a business. Well, unless you're very good at kicking a football of course. Now I know passive income is the go-to guru buzzword but it really is an amazing thing. I remember sitting right here when I got my first rental payment. It was fantastic because I didn't have to do any extra work to earn that income. Of course buying real estate isn't the only way to start earning passive income. You can buy dividend stocks that pay you every quarter like Pepsi and McDonald's or even state crypto. To create passive income you need to spend either money or time up front. It's not something you can just set up with a click of your fingers but it's worth the extra effort as it can pay you for years to come. Once my business was stable and it was doing big numbers consistently I realised something when driving home one night. I was building a sizable investment portfolio but I was only buying traditional assets such as index funds which have been a great way to build wealth over the years. It's no secret index funds make you rich but it's a very

13:30long process and it takes years for the compound interest to take effect. So I decided to take a risk on individual stock with $5,000 which at the time I considered just my fund money. If the investment went bad I would only be giving up a vacation but to my amazement the investment went from $5,000 to $50,000 in just a few days. I could have let this ride and potentially made more but maybe me I secured that profit and I never look back. I suppose what I'm saying here is sometimes when building wealth it's okay to take a calculated risk especially with money that you can afford to lose. I'm not saying just yo-lo your money away you need investments working in the background a nice safety net of cash to fall back on and a secure income but sometimes risk really does pay off and it's quite exciting. So I'm going to leave the next video right up there but don't click on it just yet make sure to subscribe if you want to grow your wealth okay. I'll see you over there.