"Buy now, pay later" installment plans have been popular for people looking to spread out the cost of big-ticket items, even before the rise in inflation.

But now, with rising costs, people are turning to this for everyday expenses.

"If you're using buy now, pay later for your coffee drink or for your gas purchase or your groceries, I would think the concern there is that, you know, those are goods that are consumable and consumable quickly," said Terri Bradford, a specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. "It's not like you just buy groceries one time and you're done."

She said buy now, pay later could be a strategy if you're stocking up for an entire month at a warehouse store, and then you break that payment up over the course of that same month.

Typically you'll have zero or minimal interest, so you avoid the high interest that comes with a credit card. But you may be buying things you can't afford.

"It seems so innocuous at the time to us, buy now, pay later, and say, 'Oh, you know, it's only $25,'" Bradford said. "But that $25 is there this week and two weeks later, and two weeks after that, and if you do it repetitively with multiple providers, you could really lose sight of what you're doing."

There are dozens of buy now, pay later providers, and Bradford said they don't have insight into what the others are doing. So that means you could take out multiple loans with several different providers, and they don't know it.

There has been discussion within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Congress about regulating the industry. But Bradford doesn't expect that to happen anytime soon.

According to a NerdWallet report, more Americans are concerned about increasing debt. Culprits of rising debt include credit cards and buy now, pay later offers.

These offers are causing Americans to spend money they do not have.

“Americans are definitely spending more, not because they necessarily want to, but because they have to,” said Sara Rathner, a personal finance expert with Nerd Wallet. “Inflation is driving up the prices of all these things we need to buy every day and that means that more consumers are leaning on their credit cards to make ends meet without necessarily having a plan in place to pay those bills back in full. “

People are most concerned about prices rising faster than income and using credit cards to cover necessities.

Buy now pay later also contributes to debt numbers, as about 20 percent of Americans say they've used the service in the past 12 months.

“There are many consumers who, unfortunately, have not been able to make their payments on time for these plans, and sometimes it can be a result of having multiple buy now, pay later plans going on at the same time,” said Rathner. “That means a lot of money is automatically coming out of your bank account, and you just want to be careful before you enter into these agreements to make sure that you have the money available to make these payments when they're due.”

She says for big purchases, a better approach could be using a credit card with rewards so you can get some of that money back.

But the key is to give yourself time to save so you can make on-time payments.