By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) - Crack open the bubbly: today is debt freedom day!

But don't too excited: this is just the hypothetical point in the year when workers have earned enough to merely service their debts -- and it has fallen more than a month later than last year.

The average Briton spends the first 70 days of the year working just to clear interest on credit card and loan debt, according to Unbiased.co.uk's annual survey.

That is 39 days later than last year, when debt freedom day fell on February 1.

Personal debt levels have increased by over 10 percent in the past year, and average levels of interest payable on this debt have increased by over 6 percent.

Personal loan debt is almost four times higher -- rising to 9.8 billion pounds from 2.6 billion pounds -- while interest rates on personal loans are 0.5 percent higher as the credit crunch takes its toll.

That means that Britons pay almost 1.5 billion pounds in interest payments alone.

Credit card debt, meanwhile, has declined slightly, to 54.9 billion pounds from 55.6 billion.