Financial stress drops in South Africa – DebtBusters report
Financial stress levels have taken a dip in the past two years, according to the latest Money-Stress Tracker by financial advisory group DebtBusters.
Over 27,000 respondents participated in the company's online survey in May and June this year.
It's aimed at assessing how financial stress impacts South Africans.
This year's findings revealed that 70% of people experienced money stress.
It's down from 78% in 2023 and 75% in 2024.
The decline's been attributed to fewer national crises, such as load shedding, reduced inflation, and people managing their finances better.
But the company's executive head, Benay Sager, warned that while the extent of financial anxiety is declining, its impact on daily life remains significant.
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" All the 70% who told us they were financially anxious or stressed, over 90% of them also said their home life is stressed. So you can see a clear link between the two.
"We are showing as a country a bit of fatigue in trying to improve both our finances from an income perspective and our expenditures. For the last 10 years, it has been very hard, with high inflation and high interest rates. Salary is not increasing."
He says there are several ways to better manage financial stress.
" If the stress is coming from elevated levels of debt repayments, I would strongly encourage someone to speak to their debt counsellor and find out whether those debt repayments can be reduced. If the stress is coming from other expenditures, I would look at finding different ways of replacing those expenditures, not necessarily getting rid of them, but replacing them either."
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