Americans are falling deep into debt at the same time their personal incomes are falling, according to recent reports.

This week, an executive with Equifax told Reuters that delinquencies have been rising "across the board" in recent months, including personal credit, auto loans and mortgages. This could be a bad sign for any potential economic recovery, since it indicates that consumers have stretched out their lines of credit and are now either falling into default or focusing more on saving.

Reuters also noted that bankruptcies were up 37 percent over the past year about 12 percent of subprime credit card holders were 60 days behind on payments.

Meanwhile, the federal government reported this week that personal incomes had dropped slightly last month, while consumer spending fell 0.6 percent. Forbes noted that this is the fifth consecutive month of declining consumer spending, the longest such trend since at least 1959.

However, the spending drop was actually reportedly somewhat smaller than the 0.7 percent that many economists were expecting.

With credit options drying up for many consumers, there are other ways such as pay day loans to meet short term cash needs.

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