I paid off a £800k mortgage on a £25k salary – but trolls bombard me with ‘stupid’ insults because I struggle to spell

, 40, wakes up every day to dozens of messages telling her she’s stupid. Dyslexic, she often finds herself tripping over spellings and mixing up her letters - and social media trolls don’t let her forget it. 

Gemma, who lives in Billericay, Essex, with husband Adam and their kids, son Brody, eight, and two-year-old daughter Bronte, says: “I’ve been called thick, told my writing is terrible and that my spelling hurts people’s eyes.

“People tell you to grow a thicker skin, but you shouldn’t have to in this day and age. Most of these women leaving nasty comments are mums with children - what kind of example are they setting for their kids?

“But at the end of the day, I know they’re just jealous of how far I’ve come - and I’ll never let it get to me.”

Gemma was first diagnosed aged six, when teachers noticed she kept getting her Ds and Bs back to front. 

She says: “I wasn’t offered any support - teachers just pointed out the difficulties I was having to my mum and so she tried her best to help me by teaching me spelling rhymes, but there just weren’t the same resources back then.

“While I knew I’d never be top of the class and I did sometimes worry about my reading and writing, I was always happy doing the best I could and playing to my strengths, like drama.”

When Gemma left school in 1997 with six GCSEs, she threw herself into jobs where her dyslexia couldn’t hold her back, working in a medical centre, and doing shifts in a pub. 

Good at saving since she was a child, Gemma was determined to get on the property ladder, and by 2000 she was bringing home £1,000 a month - and saving £800 of it. 

Within four years, she and her then-partner had saved a £30,000 deposit to buy their first home. Three years after that, she and her dad went halves on two buy-to-let properties. 

She says: “My dad wasn’t well-off either and between us we split the profits of the rent, and when we sold them ten years later we walked away with £240,000 between us.

“In 2013, I also set up BB Lingerie with my friend, selling underwear sets and cute pyjamas. My dyslexia never got in the way - my friend took care of all of the documents, accounts and emails while I focused on the creative side where my strengths lay.

“It wasn’t until December 2019 that I started sharing money-saving tips on my Instagram account, such as how to cut back on your food bill and put away a little extra each month, as a laugh. 

“But soon I was getting hundreds of messages from followers asking for more so by July 2020 I began posting them daily and officially became known as the Money Mum.”

But her success as an influencer came at cost - it was also the first time she experienced abuse over her dyslexia.

She says: “No one else was bothered by my dyslexia at school or work. I was never bullied, no one ever said a word to me about it - that is, until I went on Instagram, and now I’m reminded of it every day. 

“It was a shock to be honest; until then, I hadn’t realised how cruel adults can be. Almost all of my comments come from mums just like me, and I would never have imagined speaking to someone like that.

“It did take its toll of course, I would often dread posting something just in case it had a spelling mistake, but with Adam’s encouragement I decided to ignore the trolls.

“A lot of the times when I’m writing a caption, everything is back to front. People can tell me how something is spelled but it still won’t look right to me.

“I do try to avoid errors. My mum taught me all the rhymes to help me remember spellings, which I still use to this day. You’ll often hear me muttering ‘big elephants can’t always use small exits’ to remember how to spell ‘because’.