Watch her incredible story below.
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Video credit: Rumble
Caroline Barnett, 45, is a mother-of-eight but still manages to feed her family of 10 on $180 a week. That’s because she uses all her thrifty tricks and treats each weekly meal plan like a military exercise. This disciplined approached translates to thousands of pounds saved on food each year.
But despite the small budget, her meals are still masterpieces of culinary delight and has even mastered the art of the “fakeaway” or creating fake takeaways the look and taste like they were bought from restaurants but are entirely home-cooked.
From the kitchen of the family home in Evesham, Worcs, Caroline cooks up various meals that feed husband John, 46, and children Ellena, 21, Joshua, 18, Daniel, 15, Finlay, 11, Henry, 10, Sophia, 8, Florence, 6, and Emilia, 2. That’s no mean feat with the various tastes and appetites that are sure to exist in such a large family.
She said: “I’m a mad planner, I plan everything. My motto is: ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’.
“You have to be military when you have a family this big.
“I’m a sergeant major without the shouting, all the children have a role within the house when it comes to washing up.
“I cook everything from scratch, everything we eat I make myself, I never buy ready meals.
“I like to know what’s in our food, the only way to feed a family is to cook from scratch, we all eat the same thing.
“When you get into the supermarket you get bombarded with stuff you don’t need. I hate waste, I try not to waste anything.
“If I get to a Friday and my fridge is virtually bare then I’m really pleased because then I’ve shopped well.”
To make sure that everyone gets to school or college on time, the couple drives the children in the family minibus and follow a strict morning routine.
Saturday mornings are meant for trips to the grocery based on the meals that Caroline already planned for the 7 days of the week.
Caroline said: “Breakfast is usually toast, cereal and fruit, and porridge.
“Mornings can be a bit crazy getting everyone out on time.
“Lunchtime is mixed, some take packed lunches to school.
“My husband does the sandwiches and I usually add some cakes or sweet treats I’ve made myself, I try to avoid crisps.
“I don’t buy cheap, supermarket alternatives because I know I can save the money by making my own. I make my own bread, cakes and also make my own pizza.”
Instead of sticking to one supermarket, Caroline always visits several in order to get the best bargains from each.
She said: “I shop around, I start off at Aldi where I get all my staples from such as tinned food, pasta, rice and other sorts of thing.
“We’ll go to Tesco after that for other bits and I’ll get branded washing powder.
“I do my planning on a Saturday morning. I plan what we’ll have for the week and then I get out and go straight to the supermarket.
“If I’ve seen something that week that I like the look of or want to get the children to try then we’ll add that.
“I know what I’m going to cook in my head, it’s all there and I always try to be one step ahead.”
Dinner is always special and the supermom can serve anything from “kebab style” chicken shawarma to classics like spaghetti bolognese.
She said: “I try and make memories for the children by doing extra things to try and make each meal special.
“My idea is that they’ll look back on their childhood and they’ll say: ‘wow, do you remember when mom made that’.
“My main concern for dinner is to make sure it’s healthy. We have treats, of course, life is dull otherwise. I want people to come together around the table and chat about their day.
“I cook things that anybody could cook, I’m a home cook, I’m a mom that enjoys cooking. I’ve got only a set amount of time to get food on the table, usually 30 minutes. Nothing takes too long.”
Caroline says that although they do eat out, the size of her family makes such excursions challenging.
She said: “We do eat out, when we go on holiday we try to eat out as often as we can.
“We do special occasions and birthdays.
“However, we can’t just say, let’s go out, we usually have to plan it.
“The kids can have what they like as long as they eat it all!”
The funny thing is that she and John never planned to have as many children as they ended up having.
She added: “We never set out to have a large family. We wanted to have two kids five years apart but it didn’t work out like that obviously.
“We discovered that we loved having lots of kids, we both come from small families.
“We were fortunate enough to carry on and I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve had fairly textbook pregnancies and births so we’ve been very lucky that our family has been able to grow.”