Although consumer credit increased by $3.7 billion over the course of the December Christmas season, January’s consumer credit increase was almost double that at $6.9 billion. This increase included the second-biggest January revolving credit surge in the past decade.

“People once dependent on home-equity financing are turning to other forms of short-term financing after the collapse in subprime mortgages made it harder to qualify for loans,” Bloomberg reports.

January is normally when people are working hard to pay off the credit card debt they accrued from their Christmas shopping. Now that the effects of America’s subprime mortgage crisis are in full swing, however, those who are usually dependent on home-equity loans are finding it increasingly difficult to continue qualifying for these loans. The natural consequence is that these individuals are driven to their credit cards.

“In the early stage of a recession, consumers tend to rely on credit cards to see them through the hard times,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi ufj in New York.

Yet, a surge of high-risk candidates from the home-equity sector to the consumer credit sector will only drive up credit card rates and spread the subprime mortgage crisis to other areas of the economy.

As consumers plunge deeper into debt, they are desperately looking for other sources of money.