{"id":832430,"date":"2025-07-22T14:05:01","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=832430"},"modified":"2025-07-22T14:17:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:17:57","slug":"south-africans-are-sitting-in-the-danger-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/832430\/south-africans-are-sitting-in-the-danger-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans are in the danger zone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many South Africans spend almost half of their disposable income paying off debts, which finance experts say is unsustainable\u2014and even more are in the “danger zone.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to DebtBusters’ latest Money Stress Tracker for 2025, South African households are feeling less pressure on their finances this year, but still carry unsustainably high debt levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said it generally advises customers not to spend more than 30% of their take-home pay on debt repayments\u201440% at most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, its survey found that, on average, 48% of households spent more than 40% of their disposable income on debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Anything beyond 40% is unsustainable,” the group said, adding that spending more than 50% was critically unsustainable and that the 30% to 40 % range is the “danger zone.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By its metrics, 63% of South African households are in the danger zone.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Money Stress Tracker is based on a survey of over 27,000 respondents, making it one of the largest surveys conducted in South Africa. It measures household finances and consumer stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report tracks stress and financial health levels across income groups, locations, ages, and genders, showing which groups are most at risk of losing control of their finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An encouraging finding in the survey is that South Africans are generally less stressed about running out of money, with the number of respondents flagging this concern declining since 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the struggle to repay off monthly debt is very real, with almost 40% of respondents indicating they are impacted by this, up from 36% in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is most prevalent among 25 to 44 year olds in lower income brackets, evenly reflected across all provinces in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, however, those living in the Western Cape are more concerned about their finances than other provinces, taking over from Gauteng in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more populous provinces (GP, WC and KZN) have higher stress levels overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

South Africans feeling stuck<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

DebtBusters noted that while 48% of South Africans are paying more than 40% of their take-home pay on debt, and 39% are struggling to pay off the debts they owe each month, most people don’t think they’re in crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About two-thirds of people feel their debt levels are about the same or less than their peers, and the group said this is driving a ‘desensitisation’ to debt, where people accept it as the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is driving a broader trend of being ‘stun-locked’ into debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey data revealed this through significant declines in households taking action to relieve their financial stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been a 10% decline in households trying to prevent financial losses through controlling their expenses by cutting back monthly spending or sticking to a budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has also been a 13% decline in households trying to increase income by finding a higher paying job, asking family for help, taking out a loan or selling personal items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the number of people trying these methods is still higher than in 2022, DebtBusters said there is generally less enthusiasm to take action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just under a third of respondents simply said that they feel stuck, and feel there are no viable options to gain control of their finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The positive slant on the data is that most South Africans are still trying to do something to deal with the financial stresses of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In 2022 and 2023, people tended to seek better jobs or start a side hustle, while in 2024, debt counselling was the preferred way to relieve financial stress,” DebtBusters said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Now, there is a growing emphasis on entrepreneurial efforts, multiple income streams and financial independence, reflecting a move towards self-reliance and creating diverse sources of income.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most South Africans are in the ‘danger zone’, with a huge chunk of disposable income going to paying off debts each month, and many feeling stuck about what to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":772373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[13165],"class_list":["post-832430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-debtbusters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832430"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832489,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832430\/revisions\/832489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}