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The UK's unstoppable "desire to acquire" has turned us into a nation of over-spenders and is plunging us deeper and deeper into debt. According to the latest figures from money charity Credit Action, total personal debt is now £1,114 billion (over £1.1 trillion!). Having broken through the trillion barrier in June 2004, this figure rose by £112 billion in just thirteen months, or over £9 billion a month. In other words, the UK's personal debt has been increasing by £12 million every hour of every day. Ouch! The good news is that about five-sixths (83%) of this debt, a total of £924 billion, is made up of mortgages secured against our homes, which are themselves worth about £3.2 trillion. However, the remaining £190 billion is composed of more expensive stuff: credit and store cards, car and personal loans, overdrafts and so on. With about 47 million adults in the UK, this unsecured debt comes to a little over £4,000 each - up by four-ninths (45%) since 2000. The average UK household now has a total debt, including mortgages, of roughly 1½ times our combined take-home pay, which is even higher than our American counterparts. Blimey! What's more, with debt predicted to increase faster than wages for the next few years, this load is going get gradually heavier. The really bad news is that our fastest-growing debt comes in the form of credit and store cards, which are among the most expensive ways to borrow. Since 2000, our credit-card debt has increased by three-quarters (75%), from £32 billion to £56 billion. There are now around 74 million credit cards in the UK, which comes to about 1.6 cards per adult. Amazingly, more than 16,000 plastic-card transactions took place every minute of 2004 - our cards should be red-hot! What's more, although the Bank of England's base rate has fallen over the past five years, standard interest rates on credit cards are largely unchanged, and remain sky high at an average annual rate of 15.75%. With three-quarters of this plastic debt attracting interest, it is costing us about £550 million a month in interest. Ouch - it doesn't have to be this way, as I explained in From 30% To 0% In Sixty Seconds! For one in eleven adults (9%), monthly debt repayments (excluding mortgages) gobble up more than half of their gross income (before deductions). I've been there, and I can tell you that it's not a nice place to be! Hence, with all this debt sloshing around, it's no wonder than personal bankruptcies and insolvencies have hit a 45-year high, and why a fifth of us are too scared to check our bank balance! Oh dear, things don't look too rosy for us, do they? However, it doesn't have to be this way, as I discovered when I decided to tackle my £50,000 debt burden, way back in 1998. After killing my debt, I transformed myself from a spendthrift borrower into a determined saver and investor. I did this by cutting my expenses and abandoning instant gratification, in favour of building long-term wealth. These four articles will help you to do the same: Good luck with laying your debt to rest! More: Visit our Get Out Of Debt centre | Kill your interest bill: get a 0% credit card today!