The two years that preceded my breakdown in the mid-nineties was a high-spending time. Not so much a spree, more a loan on an old banger which then got extended to buy a later model, and then further stretched for household repairs.

Suddenly and frighteningly, with compounded interest, we were up to our necks in debt.

Thankfully, a family member baled us out without charging interest and, within two austere years we’d battled back to solvency and sanity.

And yet austerity is the very pits with last week’s voters in Greece, and has even caused a new French Revolution. I guess we’d be following suit had our recent local election results been a national affair.

Austerity causes discomfort, even hunger pains and worse in Greek kotosoupa queues, and we continue to give it the thumbs down.

Yesterday (every day, in fact) we spent £1.5 billion on our credit cards.

Far from cutting back, our average household debt went up a hundred pounds to £55,436, and personal debt now stands at a terrifying one and half trillion pounds. On this we pay £172 million interest daily leading to the Citizens Advice Bureau coping with 8,500 new debtors each working day.

“For the love of money,” states God’s New Testament writer Paul in his first letter to friend Timothy (Chapter 6) “is a root of all kinds of evil.”

God’s timely warning via Paul continues, “Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

I broke down because I pushed for things that I could have waited for. I had to recognise that my peace and my purse would only be mended by austerity, and this goes for the Greeks, the French and us Brits.

Anything short of this will add to the time we wallow in our evil stew.