A stay-at-home mum from Queensland has offered a glimpse into her weekly grocery shop, including what Friday night takeaway looks like.
If you think your weekly grocery and take-out bill is expensive – wait until you hear how much this mother-of 16 has to fork out.
Jeni Bonell and her husband Ray, from Queensland, have a massive family consisting of nine sons and seven daughters, aged between six and 31.
Out of their 16 kids, 10 of them live at home. And just as an example of how much food they go through, they eat about 10 loaves of bread each week.
“In the past it’s been much more but it all depends on our menu we have at the time,” Ms Bonell wrote in an Instagram post on Monday.
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The 51-year-old mother usually spends an average of $450 on groceries every week.
But in celebration of her son’s 10 birthday, she treated the family to a Hungry Jack’s feast on Friday, totalling $131.
She shared a snap of her son Damian surrounded by four large family bundle meals, including 16 portions of fries, eight burgers, 40 chicken nuggets and 16 soft drinks.
“Loving just the little bit of takeaway for his birthday dinner,” Ms Bonell captioned the image with a wink emoji.
She said with her son Damien turning 10, it left the family with just one child in the single digit age range now.
“Mummy is definitely feeling all the feels about all her babies growing up,” she added.
When you are part of “Australia’s biggest family”, it often means the grocery shop is “enormous” with the supermum-of-16 recently sharing a glimpse into her weekly shop.
In one video she explains how after a trip to the butcher, she returned home with a huge meat haul that included 6kg of steak, 10kg of beef sausages, 6kg of curried sausages, 5kg chicken breasts and two trays of garlic rissoles.
“So I’ve been into the butchers – I have an enormous amount of meat that I just bought and I am going to take that home now and prep it into meals sizes for the family,” Ms Bonell explained.
After dividing them into portion sizes, she then meals preps the food, before popping them into labelled freezer bags for future use.
The stay-at-home mum usually does a huge supermarket shop at the start of the week to stock up on pantry staples, but with some stock lasting just half a week, she’s back at the store again to pick up essential items such as milk, bread and fresh produce.
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“When you just need milk, bread and some fruit and vegetables,” she wrote in a Facebook post alongside a snap of a big grocery shop.
Many were amazed by her huge shop which included 1kg grapes, 400g of cherries and 4kg of potatoes.
“You don’t need to join a gym. So much weight training going on, lifting the milk jugs,” one person joked.
The family, who also have their own YouTube channel with 34,000 subscribers, often share videos of how they run their household, but Jeni also uses the platform to update followers on her cancer battle.
In one clip from earlier this year, dad Ray who is an electrician, revealed how he was tasked with doing some of the shopping trips while Jeni recovered at home.
It was following surgery to remove a tumour on her kidney after her cancer returned for the second time.
With the help of his daughter Eve, the pair purchased 10 boxes of breakfast cereal, 15 litres of milk, four loaves of bread and 40 ice cream popsicle sticks. The bill totalled $195.66.
“As you all know my wife Jen is recovering from a large operation and it looks like it’s dad’s turn to do the groceries,” Ray said in the clip.
“Jen usually keeps the freezer well stocked so we need to go and get some basics like bread, milk, fruits and vegetables.”
After arriving home, the pair unpacked the goods with Ray joking “a few extra things had fallen into the trolley” which included two boxes of Cheezels, potato chips, Samboy, flavoured milk and Arnott’s biscuits.
Ray described the grocery haul as “only a little shop”.
“I’m not quite cut out for doing the groceries. I’m glad that Jen does it all the time,” he said, with his daughter responding: “I think mum might be better at doing the groceries.”
To help keep costs down, Jeni previously said she always buys homebrand items, stocks up on half-price products and buys fresh 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.
