In a very unexpected development, U.S. Consumers increased their non-real estate borrowing for the first time in a year.

According to new numbers released by the Federal Reserve Friday, the total seasonally adjusted consumer credit increased in January by $4.96 billion (for a 2.4% annual rate) to $2.46 trillion.

Economists had widely expected consumer borrowing to keep falling, given the still-weak job market and tightening credit in the run up to the CARD Act going into effect.

The good news is that this borrowing was not fueled by Americans running back out to the malls and throwing their credit cards around like ninja stars.  Balances on revolving debt (i.e. credit cards and lines of credit) fell in January by a 2.3% annual rate.

Fixed-payment loans (like car loans and student loans, which are much safer than credit cards in these troubling times) were driving the number.  These were up 5% during this time.

Some attribute the rise in new borrowing to a rosier outlook for the long-term economy and increased consumer confidence.  Other attribute it to a new “hot” phenomenon: “Frugal Fatigue.” That’s what the hipsters are calling the burning desire by Americans to get out and shop after being fiscally cooped up for too long.

Sort of like an alcoholic falling off the wagon or that chaste girl you knew from high school who turned into a super-slut when she got to college.  Some people just can’t bottle it up for long.

It will be interesting to see if this was a one-month hiccup or if our debt has bottomed out and is on the way back.

Which wouldn’t be an altogether bad thing, if we turn to smart borrowing in the future.  Our economy needs people buying things, preferably big, expensive things. And with limited job and wage growth in the short term, a lot of that will clearly have to be on credit.

Let’s just hope that we don’t forget the lessons of the last two years and forget frugality altogether.  Borrowing for college and cars is goods, vacations and iPads, not so much.  Plus we all need to keep our credit card purchases to a minimum, sticking a figurative and financial fork in the eye of those banks that took advantage of folks in their neediest hour.

By now you should be very familiar with Ann Minch, the woman who nearly brought Bank of America to its knees with a YouTube video.

Well not quite,  but she did get BofA to lower the rate on her credit card, which is a pretty keen accomplishment in its own right and probably all she wanted in the first place.

Ann became a short-lived media darling and hoped to leverage her exposure to start an anti-debt movement that failed to gain much traction, perhaps because its main vehicle was a poorly designed website with little information and no community or social networking elements.

And if she really wanted to get out of debt, she should have slapped some ads on the site. Google probably would have even served some up from Bank of America and the irony would have made the Internet implode.

But instead, with her 15 minutes just about up, our favorite debt revolutionary has apparently gone all Tea Party on us and is now railing against “the corruption, greed and tyranny that has our nation in a stranglehold” on a new website.

Calling for a “civil revolution” the site asks Americans to rage against:

• The totally-corrupt two-party system and
• Out-of-control government endangering our lives, our currency and our freedoms.

I think it’s smart for her to go up against the political parties and government; they are far less powerful than credit card companies.

Go visit her at RevoltStartsNow.com and get your fill of all mid-1990’s-era web design you can handle.

Every year the American taxpayers provide close to $9 billion in subsidies to banks in the student loan business, and guaranteed losses when former students were unable to pay.  Sounds like a great deal for the banks, not so much for taxpayers and students.

That’s why the Obama administration is looking to cut out the middleman and as a result cut out the legs of the financial institutions who have both provided access to college funding for millions of students but also have been accused of serious abuses in search of the golden fleece.

So with the proposed government takeover of the student loan business looming, 800 pound gorilla Sallie Mae needed to find a new profit gravy train and fast. And it has chosen, not surprisingly, retail banking.

Leveraging its excellent name recognition, Sallie’s first foray into the online banking business is a savings account with a 1.35 percent annual interest rate to go along with online certificates of deposit paying higher rates. According to their website, their High-Yield Savings Account boasts an Annual Percentage Yield (APY) that is five times the national average and charges no monthly fees. It’s even FDIC-insured to boot.

To sweeten the deal, Sallie has teamed up with the college savings site UPromise to boost the returns with a 10% match bonus on Upromise earnings if a customer links these two accounts within 90 days of opening a Sallie Mae High-Yield Savings Account with either set up of an Automatic Savings Plan with a monthly deposit of $25 or more, or an initial funding of $5,000 or more.

Salle Mae has had a banking charter for about five years, and they’re finally putting it to good (at least for them) use.