A SINGLE mum-of-two splashed out £350 in Primark, JD Sports and Sports Direct when she was given £1k to spend in a week.
Kelly Gallant, 34, took her sons Kieran ,15 and Kyle 8, on a shopping spree for clothes and school supplies when they swapped lives with wealthy pensioners Shahid and Riffat Aziz in Rich House, Poor House.
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The Channel 5 programme, which aired tonight, saw the self-employed cleaner and her kids get to spend seven days in the retired couple’s luxury five-bedroom home in Swindon – complete with a state-of-the-art kitchen and heated toilet seats – and enjoy their weekly disposable income of £1,100.
Kelly – who usually has to stick to a strict weekly budget of £139 back home in their three-bedroom council house rental in Derby – took her children out for the first time for a shopping spree.
However, despite their generous budget, the family-of-three popped to popular budget chains Primark, Sports Direct and JD Sports.
The busy mum told the camera: “It’s very rare that I will take them out and say yes to what they want.
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“It’s brilliant to go down town and think, ‘I don’t have to worry about money’.”
Kyle purchased football boots and a football, while Kelly treated herself to some new clothes.
“New coat, back to school pens, pencil cases, head sets controller, trainers…” the mums recalls=ed of their purchases.
In total, they spent £350 – and the opportunity to treat her kids inspired Kelly to look into expanding her cleaning business.
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Kelly said: “I’d love to expand my business to be able to treat the boys like that – even once a month,”
She currently charges £10-an-hour and struggles to make ends meet.
The family – who have never been abroad – save £20 on groceries per week by growing fruit and vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, grapes and parsnips in an allotment, and rather than go to the hairdressers Kelly opts for a £4.50 sachet of supermarket hair dye instead.
It’s a lifestyle that reminded Shahid and Riffat – who have three children and eight grandchildren – of when they first arrived in the UK 40 years ago from Pakistan as newlyweds with just £20 in their pocket.
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However, the couple slowly built up their wealth and constructed the “dream home” the other family stayed in.
In order to fund it, following a career in computing and telecoms, Shahid played on the stock market and invested in property.
His wife took on low-paid sewing work which saw her start jobs at 7am and finish at 10pm seven days a week. She went on to become a senior manager in airline catering.
Thanks to their pensions and investments, they now live off £1,100 a week after bills.
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This allows time for Shahid to be an imam at the local mosque, and he also retrained and volunteers as an immigration lawyer.
Impressed by Kelly’s dedication to her kids and ability to budget, they replaced her 16-year-old freezer with a brand new large fridge-freezer to store more produce from the allotment in, purchased a carpet cleaner to help launch her business, and topped up the property’s electric metre.
In other parenting news, we revealed that you can buy a £15 Dyson vacuum cleaner for kids that actually works.
We also told you how a genius mum has created “baby food bellinis” using peach sachets.
And a mum-to-be was left stunned after her baby flicked V-sign at her in cheeky 4D ultrasound scan.
