72% of South Africans suffer financial stress as costs and debt rise

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Financial stress is tightening its grip on South African consumers, with 72% reporting money-related anxiety as they grapple with escalating living costs, mounting debt repayments and fears of running out of money before month-end.Home-life stress has climbed to a five-year high, highlighting the hidden emotional toll that financial strain is taking on households, according to the latest money stress tracker published by debt counselling firm DebtBusters on Tuesday.The annual survey, which is now in its fifth year, is one of the country’s largest assessments of how financial stress affects people’s lives and health. More than half of the 18,000 respondents for 2026 said they spent more than 40% of their take-home pay on debt repayments, with younger consumers, women and middle-income earners facing the greatest pressure.But despite the challenges, South Africans are taking proactive steps to regain control of their finances through budgeting, pursuing additional income opportunities, or seeking professional debt help, said DebtBusters executive head Benay Sager.DebtBusters executive head Benay Sager. Picture: (supplied) He said participants in the survey are not currently in debt counselling, telling a media briefing: “This is consistently what we’ve done with the money stress tracker.”South Africa has seen a rising trend of consumers going into debt review, with some critics suggesting some counsellors are doing this despite their clients’ financial position not warranting such action.The 72% of respondents who admitted to money stress this year reflects a two-percentage-point increase from last year, reversing a steady decline from a high of 78% in 2023. Home life stress has reached 42%, up by more than a third compared with 2025 and the highest recorded level since the survey began in 2022.“We’re happy that [money stress] is not back to the levels of 2023, but we’re not delighted that it’s higher than last year because this does have a burden on the overall population,” Sager told journalists.“Of those who told us they were experiencing financial stress, we wanted to know the knock-on impact affecting the other facets of their life, and consistent with previous years, 92% of those who experience financial stress told us this is also impacting their home life.“Seventy-six percent of those who told us they’re experiencing financial stress, [said] it’s impacting their work life, slightly higher than last year, and 75% told us that it’s impacting their health. After two years of interest rates being the primary driver of financial anxiety, short-term cost-of-living worries dominated this year’s survey, with respondents mainly anxious about running out of money before their next pay and not having enough to cover debt repayments. A separate survey last month did find that consumers are worried about the prospect of even higher borrowing costs after the South African Reserve Bank lifted its key policy rate by 25 basis points to 7% in May, citing intensified inflation risks after the US-Iran war boosted fuel prices.Another rate increase is a strong possibility when the Bank concludes its fourth monetary policy committee meeting of the year on Thursday.In the DebtBusters poll, concerns about inflation and living costs increased by almost a third, and worry about the cost of electricity was up 99% compared with last year.An economic impact study by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) shows that about 41,000 jobs will be lost and households will bleed nearly R10bn in the next two years after its decision to approve an additional tariff adjustment of more than R54bn for power utility Eskom.Nersa acknowledges that the decision will have a disproportionate impact on low-income households because electricity constitutes a larger share of their consumption basket.Three-quarters of respondents aged under 35 years in the DebtBusters survey said they were anxious or stressed about their finances. Financial anxiety among those aged 24 or younger was up 18% from last year, with this cohort particularly worried about paying off debt and the rising cost of living.As with previous years, women were much more financially stressed than men, while their home-life stress reached a five-year high.When financial stress infiltrates the home and is no longer left at work or contained in monthly budgeting, the opportunity for emotional recovery is lost, psychologist Andrea Kellerman said.“Emotional resources become depleted, patience decreases, communication deteriorates, and conflict becomes more likely. Gradually, the home shifts from being a place of restoration to becoming another source of psychological pressure,” she said.Business Day