Wary consumers paid off more debt than they took on in 1991, causing installment credit to shrink for the first year since 1958, the Fed said.

Americans took out $4.46 billion more in installment credit in March than they paid off, providing more evidence of strong consumer spending.

This is a sort of system of installment credit.

January's rise in overall installment credit was revised to $1 billion from an initial estimate of $900 million, today's report also showed.

Americans took out about $2.22 billion more in installment credit than they paid off in November.

It's the exact opposite of installment credit, where you get the product, and then pay for it.

But we have an increase in delinquency rates on installment credit and on mortgages.

The amount of outstanding installment credit rose $5.4 billion during the month, barely half as much as the August increase.

Americans cut the growth of their installment credit in half in August, the Government said today.

The Fed said the growth in installment credit had slowed sharply over the first five months of the year.