Americans are starting to show signs of paying down their personal debt, according to the Federal Reserve.

Despite the recent drop, Americans are still carrying a massive debt load. Last month's figures showed the combined outstanding debt for households falling from $13.94 trillion to $13.91 trillion, a 0.8 percent decrease. Still, this also happens to be the first time this report has detected any such decrease.

Even though household debt decreased somewhat last month, the Fed also noted that consumer debt, including auto loans and credit cards, was up 1.2 percent to a combined $2.6 trillion, while U.S. non-financial debt was up by a 7.2 percent annual margin. Business debt was up 2.9 percent, although this was noted to be the slowest such increase in five years.

The drop in household debt invites speculation about whether Americans are cutting back on their own spending, or whether they are simply adjusting to the effects of the credit crunch, which has dried up access to credit and resulting in the scaling back or cancellation of many lines of credit.

"The fact that net worth is going down means that people are feeling poorer and poorer and are cutting back by saving rather than borrowing," Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Associates told the Los Angeles Times.

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