More and more of us are borrowing an increasing amount of money against the value of our homes, according to research from the Bank of England. In official language this is known as mortgage equity withdrawal.

The amount of mortgage equity withdrawal amounted to £49.7bn for 2007 and that was up from £36.6bn in the previous year.

All this borrowing against the value of our homes is helping to push up High Street spending as we use to money to go shopping.

Many of us are keen to unlock all the money tied up in our house and enjoy our money a bit more. Maybe getting a new TV or car or installing a new kitchen. However the recent rises in interest rates which is now number five consecutive rises in a year are starting to take their toll on borrowing, despite the two subsequent rate drops.

As it become more and more expensive to pay back the loans because of the high interest, borrowing large sums for money for consumption of disposable goods could become less and less popular. We may actually see a fall in the amount of equity withdrawals in 2008.

However one very popular use of this sort of borrowing is to pay off credit card and personal loan debt, as it is often cheaper to borrow large sums of money. So if you have a large amount of debt in a number of different places this is one means to consolidating that debt without having to go through a debt consolidation company.