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My grandmother used to tell me that for the whole of his career, my Methodist grandfather was derided by his colleagues for not drinking, smoking or gambling. His ethos was to live within his means and not squander the wealth he earned.

I am sure he would be shocked if he were alive today learning that the average UK household nowadays spends over £900 on alcohol annually. As a non-drinker for 25 years, for me that equates to a saving of over £20,000 to date.

Similarly, the average smoker spends nearly £5,000 on cigarettes per year, amounting to £125,000 over the same period. Then there’s the lottery, on which the average player spends over £400 annually, amounting to £10,000 over a quarter of a century.

There has certainly been barakah in my grandfather’s wisdom. Having followed a similar pattern in my own life, I strangely find myself in a comfortable situation, despite modest means. Although we are a single-income household, we have managed to live debt-free for some years now.

Quite deliberately, we do not possess credit cards, which might tempt us to buy what we cannot afford. We do not have financing deals to pay for a nice new car, choosing to buy a secondhand vehicle we could afford outright instead. We don’t have the latest smartphones either.

To me, it is shocking that the average personal debt in the UK currently stands at over £25,000. But then I suppose it is not so surprising if we consider what we chose to forgo to achieve a debt-free existence. For sure, I don’t enjoy a standard of living anything like my upbringing, but everything is relative.

I am not under any illusion as to how hard life is for so many, however. In the past, we made the mistake of agreeing to be guarantors for a friend’s tenancy, and ended up having to pay off significant rent arrears on their behalf. Likewise, we’ve had to write off many loans to others when it became apparent they could not repay them. We know life is tough when you have money worries.

For sure, we don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we can at least tie our camel, so to speak. In other words, you do what you can to achieve stability in your life. I can say that though I made a mess of my foundations in my youth, repairs such as these helped me get back on track. With God’s help we have been able to live within our means ourselves. Alhamdulilah for that.