Lina Moyna once scavenged her school field for loose change just to afford lunch, now 29, she runs a viral six-figure Airbnb business
As a child, social media star Lina Moyna did not browse menus or ask her parents for lunch money. She scoured her school field for loose change.
“I’d scan the ground for pennies like my life depended on it,” said Moyna, now 29. “I’d collect them in a little pouch just so I could afford lunch. Even 40p for a cheese toastie felt like a fortune to me.”
That was the reality of Moyna’s childhood, one defined not by ambition or opportunity, but by survival. Her family had no permanent home, bouncing between the houses of relatives and acquaintances with no guarantee of where they would sleep next. “We were literally couch surfing, going from house to house,” she said. “There was no stability. You never knew where you’d be next.” The financial stress was inescapable, bleeding into every corner of daily life.
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“Every day was about money, or the lack of it,” Moyna said. “Arguments, stress, worry — it was constant. It wasn’t about wanting nice things. It was about surviving.”
For years, she assumed that struggle was simply her inheritance — the path quietly laid out for her before she was old enough to question it.
“I thought I’d just follow the path laid out for me, get a job, settle down, that’s it,” she said. “Success didn’t feel like something that was meant for me.”
That belief lasted until roughly two months into her first office job, when she looked up from her desk and felt something shift.
“I looked at my future and thought, this can’t be it,” she said. “There’s no way I’m going to live like this forever.”
What followed was an unlikely pivot into property. Moyna had £3,000, no experience, and by her own account, crippling anxiety.
“I was terrified,” she said. “I hated even going to the shops, let alone networking. But I knew staying the same was worse. I didn’t have money, so I had to think differently. I realised your network can be more powerful than your bank account.”
She built an Airbnb portfolio from scratch, slowly growing it into a six-figure operation. She now manages a team of eight, travels extensively, and drives a Porsche. She has also been approached about appearing on reality television.
But the moment that mattered most had nothing to do with any of that. At 16, Moyna had made herself a private promise. When she finally kept it — handing her mother a cheque toward a house — she said it barely felt real.
“When I was 16, I promised myself I’d buy my mum a house,” she said. “When I finally handed her the cheque, it didn’t feel real. That was the moment everything made sense.”
The family, once squeezed into borrowed spaces with no room to breathe, now lives in a five-bedroom home. Moyna has paid off their debts.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.themirror.com ’
