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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Business
Ariane Sohrabi-Shiraz & Heather Main

Mum-of-13 vacuums house four times a day and spends £15 daily on crisps alone

Looking after her family is a full-time job for mum-of-13 Alexis Brett, mother of one of Britain's largest families.

She has now detailed the extortionate costs to keep her family running, as well as the military-style operation she leads to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Super mum Alexis' 18-hour day starts at 5.30am, and she keeps going all day until she can finally get to bed at 11.30pm.

During those hours she gets through a mountain of washing and drying, vacuums the family's five bedroom home four times a day, and works out on a small fortune to feed them.

Wife Alexis and husband Davie, who live in Dingwall, Inverness-shire, recently welcomed their 13th child Scarlet, who was born in August last year.

Their other children are Campbell, 20, Harrison, 19, Corey, 17, Lachlan, 14, Brodie, 12, Brahn, 11, Hunter, nine, Mack, eight, Blake, six, Rothagaidh, five, Cameron, four, Orran, one.

The family produces an "endless supply of washing", which means they have had to fork out on a giant 14kg washing machine, which gets used three times a day.

Food is a huge expense for the family, and Alexis has to fork out on £15 a day on crisps to feed her brood. They can also easily spent £120 daily on a top-up shop in Tesco.

In addition, they get through seven litres of milk, three loaves of bread, one giant box of cereal and two multipacks of crisps every single day.

Thanks to the cost of living crisis, the family's bills are now more than £5,000 a month, with a whopping £750 of that covering their energy supply thanks to the mountain of washing they go through.

Their normal food bill can top £3,000 a month, while £600 is spent on new clothes and shoes for the younger members of the clan.

They try to keep costs down by walking places, but husband Davie still spends at least £300 on petrol driving the children around in their Land Rover.

Alexis is currently preparing to return to work as a gym instructor, and she says they aren't planning on having anymore children.

She said: "We've said no more children for a long time now, and then another one just comes along.

"I think this time we have to mean it though, we're at capacity. We've had to buy triple bunkbeds so everyone has somewhere to sleep.

"And we've shelled out for two huge corner sofas so we can all sit down at once."

The family are proud to say they don't claim benefits, and instead rely on Alexis part time job and Davie's career as a train driver to cover their expenses.

Alexis said: "Things have got significantly tighter with the cost of living rising. Every penny that comes into the house goes out again, but we do try to be careful with our money.

"We don't really have a lot of meals out, I tend to batch cook big meals like spaghetti bolognese, and we don't do big family holidays."

Alexis added that once they had five children they didn't "really notice the extra ones," adding: "There's just a lot of people everywhere and a lot of noise".

She added: "We have to be quite regimented about things like homework - we come in from school and they all sit down and get on with it, and they're pretty good at putting themselves to bed, too.

"Luckily, we've been blessed with good sleepers, so we do usually get a full night's sleep. We wouldn't change it for the world."

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