Vicky Freeman said she got the shock of her life when a friend messaged her two days ago saying there was "a guy" holding her photo on the news.
"A friend just messaged me and said 'you're all over the news'. And I was like 'what, what have I done, I'm not even there'.
"And she's like I'm sure it's you and Ruby-Jean and I'm like 'I don't think so, I've never done an ad for the Budget'.
"Then she sent me the photo of the guy holding the magazine and I was just like 'oh my God, yep, that's me and Ruby-Jean."
That guy was Finance Minister Grant Robertson, posing with copies of the Budget as they came off the printing press.
Robertson's office said the image on the Budget cover was a stock photograph purchased by the Treasury.
However, Freeman isn't such a great choice to be the face of today's Budget.
Freeman, who features on the Wellbeing Budget with her 9-year-old daughter Ruby-Jean, said she moved to Auckland at the start of 2018 to pursue her dream.
While they both got good work - featuring on Shortland Street, Jono and Ben and advertisements including Harvey Norman - she couldn't afford the financial sacrifice, a brutal realisation after discovering she was paying her 15-year-old babysitter more than she was earning.
She admitted she had given up on New Zealand.
"Honestly, I'm a single mum, so that photo is true, it's just me and my girl, that's us.
"We moved to Auckland to do the TV thing but I couldn't pay the rent ... sometimes I would have to hire a sitter to look after my girl while I went and did some TV work and I was paying the sitter more than I was coming home with because I was passionate.
"I didn't do it a lot because it made me feel kinda stupid, paying a 15-year-old sitter more than what a single mum is making. It was crazy."
Freeman said she was paying $500 a week in rent but was short about $200 each week - and she still had to feed them both.
"I just said to my daughter I can't do another year here .. the TV stuff was going well, it was good but not great pay. When you're just an extra or featured. It was hard and my daughter was like 'yeah mum, just tell me when and I'll pack my bags'.
"She didn't really enjoy school in Auckland either, she had a grumpy teacher."
As for politics, Freeman said she wasn't political at all - and said if she had to choose she'd vote for the Greens.
"I don't follow [politics] at all, to be honest. I would vote Greens because I'm a bit of gypsy and I don't get into what's going on. I just choose to tune out because I'm one person and if I get really passionate and upset about it what's that actually doing for my soul and wellbeing.
"It doesn't help me, it doesn't help the world, I just choose to be really passive and whatever they're going to do, they're going to do."
As for the photo on the cover of today's Budget, she said she initially felt it was out of context but then she saw that the Budget was all about happiness and wellbeing which both she and her daughter had now found in Queensland.
"It was very out of context but I kind of get it after they've been talking about happiness and wellbeing. Obviously it doesn't matter that I'm not even in NZ anymore."
However, she was aware that the photo could be purchased by anyone and understood it was the photographer who would get paid and not her.
The photo shoot was carried out at Long Bay, Auckland, for which she said she "didn't get paid a lot" but knew it could lead to getting exposed.
"I've always wanted to be a model or an actress or be known. I did a lot of shoots for free and be taken seriously and I'm proud, I'm so proud. I'm 41 next month and to finally have my childhood dream come true of being on a magazine. I'm blessed and grateful."
Freeman said she qualified for benefits in Australia due to living there for 10 years in her 20s.
She grew up in the small fishing village of Moeraki, south of Oamaru, where her parents, Neville and Mary, still live.
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Comments
The well being government /
Certainly better than the help ya 1% mates, close down schools, fail to pay basic maintenance for hospitals, accept 'donations' for seats governments.
Philip Beck from Greymouth = quite correct sir, one of the best we have ever had.
Now what amuses me LIKE, is that the mother LIKE, doesn't recognise her daughter and only thinks its LIKE her. Also her friend is not sure its her daughter either as she only thinks its LIKE her too. So now that they've seen the pic can they tell us if it is her daughter or only LIKE her daughter - LOL like.
Actually, quite serious LIKE (which is similar to serious but not actually), it was dumb of Treasury to use a stock internet photo. They should have taken one of their own and actually named that person.
The cost of living in Auckland is not Labour's doing!
Prior to the 1984 Labour Government launching its Scorched Earth Blitzkreig on the NZ economy the whole country was affordable to live in. In the 1970s the average value of a home in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland was between $23,000 and $25,000. That meant a family could easily move from Dunedin to Auckland and pay the same price. Now we have huge price disparities, dying towns in the provinces with a lack of employment opportunities, and the one place that does have jobs - Auckland - is completely unaffordable for the average Kiwi family. So the cost of living in Auckland is Labours doing, along with their co-conspirators over the last 30 years in National, New Zealand First and the Greens.
Its like they are on the cover of the well being booklet / and cauld not get out of new Zealand fast enough as it was to costly for them to stay here. Its like the joke of the left wing /// Unlike a labour party . that we used to know and LIKE