Mortgage-free for a year: Life-changing win for Kiwi who lost her dad and her job

After a tough couple of years – including losing her dad and her job –the winner of this year’s The Hits’ Live Free says facing a change of fortunes is “surreal”.

Christchurch-based Shona Robertson, one of five finalists in The Hits competition with OneRoof, chose the orange key as her lucky charm. It worked: in a hail of confetti and sparklers, she opened the door to a year of no mortgage payments.

Last Friday’s win of nearly $27,000, provided by OneRoof, will take the pressure off Shona’s family as she searches for a new job.

She was made redundant last month after her marketing role at Te Pūkenga, the national network of the country’s 25 polytechnics and industry training organisations, was disestablished.

When she told her story to Hits hosts Matty McLean and PJ Harding at the competition’s grand final, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

“It’s amazing to get this far. The last two years have been hard. I lost my dad in 2021, I’ve just been made redundant,” she told PJ.

She had to wait a nail-biting 30 minutes before it was her turn, as the fourth contestant, to come up on stage to try her luck.

When her key opened the door, there were more tears and hugs. “This is surreal. I love helping others and I’ve never asked for anything,” she said after the win.

“This gives us the room to find a job. And our daughter, Esme, told us she wants another ‘upstairs house’ but that’s not going to happen,” she laughed.

In an interview with OneRoof this week, Shona said this was her first experience of unemployment in 26 years of working.

“It’s a very strange thing. I was lucky to get a coach for help with CVs and LinkedIn and things like that,” she told OneRoof.

“I am just applying for the roles that meet my values – serving communities and enriching people’s lives.”

The Robertsons bought their family home in the Christchurch suburb of Hei Hei 11 years ago, just after they got married. “We’re planners and budgeters,” she said.

Luke had launched his own landscaping company just before Covid – a testing time for the couple as they struggled through the lockdowns – and his skills are on show in the couple’s front yard.

He has spent three years turning it into a “show garden” for his business, Epic Landscaping.

The win means the couple can go ahead with their planned anniversary holiday, which they put off last year when Shona became aware that her job was at risk.

“We didn’t celebrate our wedding anniversary, so the win has given us the confidence to go on holiday. We’re going to go to Daintree Rainforest [in Australia] which for Luke is exciting.”

“If there’s still enough money after I get a job, I would love to have a wee holiday home on wheels – a caravan – so we can create memories with our daughter.”

Shona reckons her late parents were looking out for her when she got up on the stage last Friday. Her mum died suddenly when Shona was 23 and overseas. “She asked my brother and my dad not to tell me. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer on a Friday and she was planning to call me on the weekend, but she died,” Shona recalled.

Her dad got ill in 2019, firstly with dementia and then with cancer. Shona said the stress of not being able to visit him at the hospital was immense.

“We weren’t allowed to be near him or take him home [after he died]. It was horrific. And then my husband was made redundant, I was caring for a young family. And in government, we were expected to work through [lockdown]. The last few years have been very stressful.”

Shona said when she called into The Hits for the Live Free competition, she got through on the first try. “It was surreal because I finished my last day at work, on May 10. The following Wednesday I heard the competition on the radio and I thought, ‘Oh, that sounds a bit like me’. Then on the Friday, of course, I got the key and I couldn’t believe it.

“I was speaking to my mum and dad, saying ‘If there’s anything you can do to make it happen, I would love it’. In the week leading up to the competition night, I looked up to the stars and I was like, ‘Please, Mum and Dad, I know you can hear me, it would be amazing’. And I swear to God the stars just went ‘pop’ like a little light bulb.”

She added, generously: “Everyone deserves this [help]. It’s such a hard time. I don’t know if the older generation understands how hard it is to live at the moment, being in a recession, the cost of living, I really feel for everybody.”

This article was first published on OneRoof and is republished here with permission.