Mum-of-16 starts Christmas shopping in July and gets gifts on credit to make sure she can afford them all
A MUM-of-16 has revealed she’s buying Christmas presents already as she gets organised for the big day, admitting she puts gifts on credit to be able to afford them all.
Jeni Bonell is one of Australia’s biggest families, sharing Jesse, Brooke, Claire, Natalie, Karl, Samuel, Cameron, Sabrina, Tim, Brandon, Eve, Nate, Rachel, Eric, Damian and Katelyn with husband Ray.
Jeni says she takes advantages of the mid-year toy sales, and takes out a few different payment schemes, called Laybuy in Australia, to be able to afford it all.
Each year the Bonell family selects one of their kids to be a ‘Christmas elf’, helping out with all aspects of the planning, with it being Eve’s turn this year.
The mum and daughter hit the sales, but not before they’ve made each child write out a toy list direct from the catalogues.
“We’ve already had the kids sit down and go through the catalogues once, now we’re having them look through them again and making their list for christmas.”
Jeni films her youngest children silently poring over the brochures, making notes of everything they want.
She said: “So what the kids are doing at the moment is they are having a look through some catalogues of the mid-year toy sales, and they’re deciding what they might like for Christmas this year.”
There are strict rules when it comes to picking toys, as kids say they’ve been taught to “choose carefully, don’t be greedy, doesn’t because it’s on the list doesn’t mean you’re getting everything on the list, have fun making the list.”
And when she asks the kids ‘what mum says’ about Christmas lists, they said: “Stay in budget.”
As they head of the shops, Jeni explains: “Middle of the year there’s always a big toy sale on, most of the shops will run end of the financial year sales, or some sort of toy sale.
“So this is where we’re going to save money and get organised well ahead of time.
“The kids have given us a list, we’re going to head into the shop and see what we can organise.
“We’ll probably put them onto Laybuys so we’ve got a long time to pay them off.
“Most of the Laybuys you can have until Christmas time, so that’s awesome.
“Let’s go and spend some money.”
The pair fill up their trolley with toys and games for remaining 15 kids, as Jeni praises their shopping skills.
She says: “I think we did pretty good, we got a lot of stuff. Organised for Christmas.
“With all the gifts that we just bought, we put them on Laybuys, we put them on like three separate Laybuys.
“That way we can pay them off but we can collect them at different times before Christmas, so that makes it a little easier on the budget as we go along.”
Jeni says that keeping track of everything they buy is how they ensure they stay in budget each year.
She says: “We have to add all of the things we bought to a list so we know what we bought, who it’s for just to stay organised, keep a running total of what we spent.
“We have a budget for Christmas so we try and stick to that.
“Here we are six months away from Christmas, and we’re a heck of a long way to being done.”
So when they get home - after milkshakes - it’s up to Christmas elf Eve to make a note of everything they bought - and spent.
Eve says: “We finished the Laybuys so I’m just looking at the dockets and writing the items we bought on our Christmas lists, and making sure we’re all on budget.”
Meanwhile ‘octomum’ Nadya Suleman shows what she feeds her 14 kids daily as she hits back at trolls who slammed her huge family.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
And a thrifty mum shares easy meal planner which has saved her family-of-five £360 a month on food.
Plus mums are raving as M&S’s Little Shop reopens with 25 more mini collectables for kids including tiny Percy Pigs.