South Africans levels of financial stress have remained high for the past three years, affecting their home and work lives as well as their health.
Younger people and those with less income are the most anxious, with particularly women carrying the burden of financial stress. Older people and those in the higher income bands are least worried but have the highest levels of unsustainable debt and are less likely to seek help.
These are the headline findings from DebtBusters third annual Money Stress Tracker survey.
The data was drawn from the responses of 26 000 registered users of www.debtbusters.co.za who are not in debt counselling. This makes it one of the largest online surveys about how financial stress impacts South Africans lives.
Benay Sager, Executive Head of DebtBusters, says the survey indicated a slight decline in levels of financial stress over the past year, from 78 of respondents in 2023 to 75 in 2024. However, this was up from 70 in 2022.
