I went into care filthy & full of nits aged 6 -now I’m a millionaire with a luxury business, anyone can do it
A WOMAN has revealed how she transformed her life around after ending up in care aged six.
Emily Abraham, 45 is the co-owner of luxury pre-loved fashion boutique Love Luxury, which resells luxury goods for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
However, the business owner and mum-of-three did not have the best start in life.
From the age of five, Emily was in and out of foster care, as her mother, who was a drug addict, was often missing.
And then when Emily was six, her mother passed away and she was taken into permanent foster care.
When she arrived at the foster home, Emily said that she was filthy and full of nits, and didn’t even know how to use a knife and fork.
However, her life started to turn around due to the positive influence of the family.
“Being with them was very positive to me because they were normal people and a normal family,” she told Femail.
“I had a mum and a dad and they had their own three children.”
When she was 13, Emily moved in with her grandmother, but she is still in touch with her foster parents to this day and said that she can’t thank them enough for the life that they gave to her.
Emily said that she has always had an eye for luxurious things, a love which stems from watching her grandfather buying gold.
After meeting her husband, Adam the two set up Love Luxury together, and now resell items by brands including Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Cartier.
In 2023, Emily, Adam and their children relocated to Dubai to expand their business.
They also run a TikTok account, which has helped their business to fly, and which now has over 1.9 million followers.
Discussing how her time in foster care has helped her to become the woman she is today, Emily said: “For many years I was on the destructive route and I think that what I took from being a child in foster care was that I wasn’t good enough.
How to start your own business
Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis revealed his tips for budding entrepreneurs:
- One of the biggest barriers aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners face is a lack of confidence. You must believe in your idea — even more than that, be the one boring your friends to death about it.
- Never be afraid to make decisions. Once you have an idea, it’s the confidence to make decisions that is crucial to starting and maintaining a business.
- If you don’t take calculated risks, you’re standing still. If a decision turns out to be wrong, identify it quickly and deal with it if you can. Failing that, find someone else who can.
- It’s OK not to get it right the first time. My experience of making bad decisions is what helped develop my confidence, making me who I am today.
- Never underestimate the power of social media, and remember the internet has levelled the playing field for small businesses.
- Don’t forget to dream. A machine can’t do that!
“Nobody wanted me and even though that wasn’t really the truth, that’s how it felt.
“When I realised, actually that’s as far from the truth as it could be, it helped me to see everyone and everything in a new light, I took resilience from that.”
And Emily is making sure that her children are given everything she never had growing up, especially her youngest, 11-year-old Moo, who is known as the “billionaire’s daughter”.
She previously told Fabulous: “My daughter’s favourite thing to wear is her Yeezy 350 trainers.
“She has a special collection of designer handbags and fine jewellery, the majority of which are family heirlooms.
“She loves handbags and has such a great knowledge of them already that she’s picked up when she’s spent time in the store.
“She loves to be involved in the business and is so interested in designer fashion now.”
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