Zip zap, it's a path to penury

Our total debt including mortgages, hire purchase, personal loans and other credit has leapt to $114 billion compared with $25 billion in 1990. Removing mortgages from the equation, we still owe more than $10 billion to banks and other financial institutions. In short, there's a lot of Kiwis with debt problems.

Many start out with student debts - which amount on average to $14,242. Once out of university, many people fall in love with spending and it's a slippery slope to debt disaster. That's the easy bit.

Ditching debt is where it gets difficult and, like dieting, it's easy to think that just one more chocolate, or a new pair of shoes are a flash in the pan compared with thousands of dollars of debt.

It's easy to work out if you're overweight. But identifying that your debt is out of control is the biggest step, says NZ Federation of Family Budgeting Services executive officer Raewyn Nielsen.

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