One in ten Aussie fear they'll never escape debt: survey

One in ten adult Australians fear they'll never escape the burden of debt, a new study has revealed.

A survey commissioned by product comparison website finder.com. au, released on Wednesday, found more than half of the owed money in Australia is in the form of mortgages, credit cards, cell-phone contracts as well as personal and car loans.

Record low interests rates have created a culture of easy debt living, money expert Michelle Hutchinson said.

"The level of personal, household debt is growing in Australia and it seems that more people are just accepting of the fate that they'll always be in debt for most of their life," Hutchinson said.

Twenty percent of respondents saw themselves debt free in five years while 17 percent said within six to twenty years.

Generation X were more pessimistic, with 12.5 percent saying they'll never be debt free.

Australians owed 109 billion Australian dollars in credit card and personal loan debt in July, with more than 1.37 trillion Australian dollars owed in mortgages, according to figures form the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. Endi