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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Paige Freshwater

'I have 12 kids and serve their dinner in a paddling pool - it's so much easier'

A mum-of-12 has been hailed a "genius" after serving up her children's dinner in a paddling pool to save on washing up. Alicia Dougherty, from New York, America, has taken to TikTok to share her budget-friendly 'nacho pool' dish that fills an entire 135-litre pool.

To start, she empties 10 bags of tortilla chips into the pool before adding minced beef, melted cheese, lettuce, olives, tomatoes, grated cheese and sauce. Her video, which is captioned "Snackerty board got upgraded to a nacho pool", has been viewed more than two million times and has received about 180,000 likes.

Commenting on her idea, one user said: "This is how memories are made. Amazing job. mum."

Another user added: "Everyone's so creative."

A third user said: "Dang, just one thing to clean - genius."

One more user added: "Oooo to be one of your kids."

Alicia regularly shares videos showing what life is like with 12 children - and how you have to get creative at meal times.

But not everybody agrees with the decisions she makes, with trolls claiming she spends too much on shopping and buys the wrong food.

Fighting back, she detailed everything she buys at the shops in one of her TikTok videos, saying: "The following will last us for almost one week plus I had to get supplies for the boy's football party later today.

"I did not get apples, we're going to go apple picking for those later. I did get produce including 25 bananas.

"Some snacks including 191 packs of chips. Bread for the week, a few boxes of cereal.

"Dairy for the week including 14lbs of cheese, lunchables, coffee, some canned goods, meat including 12.5lb chicken. 6lb of pasta and a few random things and that's all for today!"

In the video, she shows her entire shop, which includes 191 packets of crisps, and the total cost of the mountainous food shop - £876.

One said: "How do yall afford this? I would literally go bankrupt. Good job mama!"

And another wrote: "This is literally thousands of dollars a month on groceries."

While a third added: "1,200 dollars in one week? What in the world do you guys do for work? That is my rent and my food for two weeks."

Do you have a story to share? Email paige.freshwater@reachplc.com.

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