A supermum-of-16 has offered a glimpse into what it’s really like to quickly ‘pop to the shops for bread and milk’ for her growing family.
Jeni Bonell and her husband Ray, from Queensland, have a super-sized family consisting of nine sons and seven daughters, aged between six and 31.
The 51-year-old mother usually does on a massive supermarket shop at the start of the week to stock up on pantry staples, spending an average of $450.
However, the stock would only last the family half the week. And so she would return to the store mid-week to pick up essential items such as milk, bread, fresh fruits and vegetables.
In her latest shop, she picked up six bottles of 3L milk, three loaves of sliced bread and an array of fresh fruits and vegetables.
The haul included 2kg carrots, four punnets of strawberries, two punnets of blueberries, 1kg grapes, 400g of cherries, 600g of grape tomatoes, 4kg potatoes, two salad kits, a punnet of peaches and a bag of apricots.
‘When you just need milk, bread and some fruit and vegetables,’ she wrote on Facebook, alongside a huge grocery haul of her ‘quick shop’.
Her latest grocery bill came to an estimate total of $132.67.
Dozens of people were amazed with her shop, with one joking: ‘You don’t need to join a gym. So much weight training going on, lifting the milk jugs.’
Other parents shared what their typical shop looks like in their home.
‘My family is the same but there’s only ten of us here, just a couple of days essentials. Love the fresh veggies and fruit,’ one mother wrote.
And another added: ‘Makes me smile. We are over the hump. 11 kids, but four married now and we have more grandkids than kids.’
Her latest haul comes after she previously shared what her weekly grocery shop usually looked like.
‘Let me explain how I grocery shop… I don’t shop just for the food for that week. I actually stockpile,’ she said in her YouTube video last year.
To keep her costs down each week, the mother said she buys homebrand ingredients, stocks up on half-price products and buys meat and fresh produce in bulk.
‘So I tend to buy up whatever we need to make meals for that week to add to our supplies or if I have something that I find that’s on special or half-price or it’s a great bargain, then I will buy up on that product and we will stockpile it,’ she said.
‘We’ve bought certain ingredients to go with certain meals that we are going to make this week – and the rest of it is basically we are just filling the cupboards back up to what fits in the pantry.’
