LAUREN Hewitt and Josh Hudson have just bought a house outright aged 25. Can you work out the clever way they did it besides trivial money ‘hacks’?

‘Getting on the property ladder is easy if you do one thing: stop your wasteful spending. Because not eating 70p avocados is definitely how you raise the best part of 300 grand. 

‘It’s all about making sacrifices, and sadly too many young people today won’t do that. Luckily my parents brought me up to be careful with money. “Cut your coat according to your cloth,” is what my frugal corporate lawyer mum and hedge fund manager dad always told me. 

‘And so Josh and I devised a strict money-saving plan. Making meals at home instead of eating out. Buying items on discount and cutting out non-essentials. You’d be surprised how often you don’t need new headphones or a top, much like when I was a child and my parents said I didn’t need two ponies. 

‘We stopped wasting money on £4.50 lattes and a £12.99 Netflix subscription we barely watched. We both loved foreign holidays, but we agreed we’d tighten our belts and just stay in Josh’s parents’ villa in Gran Canaria. 

‘I’m a terrible clothesaholic, but you can get perfectly good outfits secondhand. “Can I have all those Jigsaw dresses you never wear, and actually those Jimmy Choos?” I asked my mum. A deal was struck, and I agreed to cook dinner that evening. 

‘But I think the hack that really helped us buy a house was checking our finances daily. If there was money owed on my credit card, I’d immediately say “Daddy, can you pay my card off for me again?” That way I avoided paying interest completely.

‘And now, after taking control of our spending and some careful budgeting, we own our home, and my parents are delighted. “Pay back the £285,000 any time,” they said.’