THIS WEEK, whilst minding my own business, I've been offered two credit cards, a personal loan, and a mortgage.

I've been invited to consolidate my debts, carry out home improvements and buy-now-pay later.

And that's not including the dozens of adverts being rammed down my throat on a daily basis offering handfuls of cash in different guises.

With banks and money-lenders dangling large sums of easily-accessible cash in front of us, is it any wonder a new report has found that debt tops the list of things us Britons worry most about?

That's a big deal when you think about it. We worry more about owing money than crime, health problems, terrorism and global warming.

According to the Citizens Advice Bureau 20 per cent more people have been in contact this year seeking help for financial problems.

And the number of people needing assistance to clear unmanageable debt has doubled in the past 10 years.

Frighteningly, the report found it will take an average of 77 years for people asking for help to get back into the black and that many people face a "lifetime of poverty".

But it's not vast amounts that are causing this grief - it shocked me to discover that this misery is being caused, on average, by a debt of £13,153 - an amount most of us could have access to with a few clicks of a mouse.

The root of a many debt problems is the combination of a low income and poorly understood financial decisions, according to the charity. But I reckon there's also an element of desperation in there.

We all need money to live. And if someone doesn't have enough money to live on without borrowing, then where's the choice?

Even if they understand the rip-off interest rates their hand is forced.

Thinking about debt and the mess people can so easily get themselves into has given me a new-found understanding of the Blackburn woman who went on a spending spree after finding £135,000 mistakenly deposited in her bank account.

Sarah Jane Lee, 19, has been warned she could face jail after blowing £33,000 in three weeks living the high life - luxury goods and a holiday to Disneyworld.

Many people were quick to jump on Lee, calling her a thief and a cheat.

But when you think of the circumstances - a jobless single mother, living in one of Blackburn's poorest areas, with only £6.59 sitting in her bank account - you can start to understand why the option of spending the cash was so hard to resist.

I know lots of the older generation would argue that in their day it was simple.

If you didn't have the money, you didn't buy the goods. And if you wanted something badly enough you'd save for it.

But times have changed.

The only way out is if banks and money-lenders act more responsibly and stop offering loans and credit cards to people who are already struggling.

It doesn't take a genius to work out the way to clear your debt ISN'T by getting a bigger loan to pay off existing commitments.

And yet that's what many people do over and over again, until they're in a mess so consuming they don't know where to turn.