The Block winners Sara and Hayden Vale have no income amid COVID-19 crisis
The Block winners Sara and Hayden Vale are feeling the pinch as the couple have no income amid the coronavirus pandemic. Her job at Virgin is now up in the air after mass layoffs.
Confidential
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Millions of Australians are out of work, the economy is tanking due to the global health crisis and even celebrities are feeling the pinch.
Sara and Hayden Vale among the many people who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2018 winners of The Block have spent the entire $645,000 prize money they won on the show and neither of them has an income at the moment.
Last week, Sara’s employer, Virgin Australia, temporarily stood down 8,000 of its 10,000 staff and she told Confidential that her flight attendant job is now in limbo.
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“I was actually on maternity leave and I was due to go back in August,” she said.
“I called up my manager yesterday and said ‘I just want to know now, who’s been let go and who hasn’t’ and she goes, ‘you were due to come back in August but now we’ve cancelled all the return to work dates. After this mess, if there is an airline to come back to you will hold your job, unfortunately we don’t know’.”
They said there’s a lot of restructuring... so I don’t have a job pretty much. At the moment I’ve got nothing.”
The couple, who are parents to 11-month-old son Lawson and three-year-old daughter Harlow, say all their money has gone into the house they’re building on the South Coast.
They sold their two-bedroom North Bondi home last month for $1,225,000, which is $250,000 more than they paid four years ago.
They won The Block after their property in St Kilda’s Gatwick sold for $3.02 million, $545,000 above reserve.
”All the money that we won when we were on The Block is all gone now because we’ve had a house that we had to put money into, we used all that money for our house,” Sara said.
“The proceeds that we won from The Block, that’s all invested in the house that we’re building (on the South Coast) and the proceeds that we’ve got from the sale of [North Bondi] that’s going to the house too.”
A video of Sara crying over children’s Panadol recently went viral on social media after panic buyers cleared shelves in Bondi, making it difficult for her to soothe baby Lawson’s teething pain.
“I think it was a number of factors that got to me and that was the final straw, the week before I couldn’t find any nappies, formula or baby wipes and the following week it was the Panadol,” she said.“My heart really breaks for all the elderly people out there too.”
Sara admits the next few months will be “tough” as she considers returning to work as an interior designer to make ends meet.
Hayden is also looking into odd jobs.
“It’s tough but nothing says I can’t do interior design while I don’t have a job. We won’t be able to keep going the way we’ve been going that’s for sure,” she said.