More respondents to DebtBusters’ 2026 Money-Stress Tracker are carrying debt-repayment burdens that the company regards as unsustainable, while the survey also points to a gap between repayment pressure and respondents’ perceived need for help.
More than half of respondents spend at least 40% of their take-home pay on debt repayments, up from 48% last year, while 40% said they struggle to pay all the debt they owe each month. Yet 29% said they do not need help because they are “not over-indebted”, and half said they do not need debt counselling.
DebtBusters regards spending less than 30% of take-home pay on debt repayments as manageable, 30% to 40% as a “danger zone”, and more than 40% as unsustainable. The calculation includes home-loan repayments.
Its benchmark is not a formal determination of over-indebtedness but provides the framework the company used in presenting the survey results.
The fifth annual Money-Stress Tracker polled close to 18 000 subscribers to the DebtBusters website during May and June.
DebtBusters executive head Benay Sager told a media briefing on 21 July that the survey is aimed at subscribers who are not currently in debt counselling because the company reports separately on its debt-counselling clients through its quarterly Debt Index.
Although the large online survey should not be read as representative of the South African population, DebtBusters says it remains one of South Africa’s largest online surveys measuring how financial stress affects home life, work life, and health.
Financial stress remains entrenched
The tracker found that 72% of respondents experienced money stress, up from 70% last year and reversing some of the previous improvement, although still below the 78% recorded in 2023.
Sager said the dominant source of anxiety had shifted during the tracker’s five years: from inflation in 2022 and interest rates in 2023 to debt levels in 2024, relative stability in 2025, and renewed cost-of-living pressure this year. Concerns about inflation and living costs increased by 28% from 2025, while concern about electricity costs almost doubled, rising 99%.
DebtBusters identified the re-emergence of anxiety over meeting living expenses as one of the five defining findings for 2026. The other top findings were:
- Worsening debt-repayment pressure.
- Respondents aged 24 or younger are the most financially anxious.
- A disproportionate deterioration among women, whose overall level of financial concern is 15% higher than men’s – the widest gap recorded.
- A greater openness to debt counselling.
The focus on debt also forms part of a longer-term picture of financial stress. Based on more than 130 000 responses over five years, DebtBusters identified four factors as the most important indicators of money stress: feeling financial stress, feeling home-life stress, spending more than 40% of income on debt repayments, and feeling stuck.
All four were higher than in 2025. Home-life stress recorded the sharpest deterioration, increasing from 33% to 42%, while financial stress edged up from 70% to 72%.
Among respondents who reported financial stress, 92% said it affected their home life, 76% their work life, and 75% their health.
DebtBusters said although the dominant source of financial anxiety has changed over the years, short-term financial survival has consistently crowded out longer-term planning for many respondents.
Debt-repayment pressure worsens
The share of respondents spending at least 30% of their take-home pay on debt repayments increased from 63% in 2025 to 67% this year. About 53% spend at least 40%, up from 48%, while 35% spend half or more of their take-home pay servicing debt.
Sager said the increase in respondents above the 40% threshold was one of the findings that concerned DebtBusters most.
By age, the most severe debt-repayment pressure was among respondents aged 35 to 44. About 75% of this group spend more than 30% of their after-tax income servicing debt, compared with 69% last year.
By income, Sager said respondents taking home more than R10 000 a month are under the most debt repayment pressure. Within this group, he singled out those earning between R20 000 and R35 000 a month – the “backbone” of South Africa’s middle-class population. Three-quarters of respondents in this band spend more than 30% of their after-tax income on debt repayments, while four in 10 spend at least half.
Asked during the briefing about the reasons people borrow, Sager said much of the debt DebtBusters sees involves personal loans or credit lines used for essential expenses rather than luxury purchases. He said credit was often being used for necessities, including food and providing for children or other dependants, a pattern DebtBusters has observed since Covid.
Are high debt levels becoming normalised?
The repayment figures raise a further question about how consumers perceive their own financial position.
Although 40% of respondents said they struggle to pay all their debt each month, 29% said they are not over-indebted and do not need help, while 50% said they do not need debt counselling. These are separate survey-wide findings and do not necessarily describe the same respondents.
DebtBusters also asked respondents to compare their debt with that of their peers. About 31% believed they had less debt than their peers, compared with 18% in 2022 and broadly in line with last year.
This raised the question of whether South Africa had entered an “era of debt normalisation”.
Sager said how respondents perceived their debt relative to their peers could be important in understanding how they viewed their own financial position. Higher earners were particularly likely to believe they had less debt than their peers: 40% of respondents earning more than R35 000 a month held this view.
He said “a bit of normalisation of high levels of debt” appeared to be playing a role.
How respondents are adapting to financial pressure
The findings do not, however, suggest that financially stressed respondents are doing nothing about their circumstances.
DebtBusters said people generally respond to money stress by trying to control expenses or increase their income. Both remain common, although they have declined from their 2023 highs.
The share taking steps to control expenses fell from 71% in 2023 to 62% this year, while those trying to increase their income declined from 75% to 67%.
The proportion trying to reduce monthly spending has fallen from 43% in 2022 to 36% this year. DebtBusters described the decline as a possible sign of “savings fatigue”, while Sager said there appeared to be fatigue around controlling expenses.
At the same time, respondents are pursuing other ways to improve their finances. About 34% said they were looking for a higher-paying or better job, compared with 26% in 2022, although this remains below the 2023 peak of 38%.
Others reported selling personal items, making or growing things to sell, buying and selling online, or renting out spare accommodation. Sager described these responses as evidence of an entrepreneurial approach to dealing with financial pressure.
There are also marked differences by age.
Although younger respondents reported particularly high levels of financial anxiety, they were also more likely to act. DebtBusters said younger respondents were about 1.5 times more likely than older respondents to stick to a budget and almost four times more likely to look for a higher-paying job.
Lower-income respondents also showed a strong propensity to act. Almost half of those in the lowest-income group were looking for a higher-paying job, while one in five were asking family members for help.
Sager said the findings showed that people were “hungry to make a plan”, although they might need to be connected with the right opportunities.
Why some respondents are not acting
About one in seven respondents said they were not taking action to alleviate their money stress. Among those who had not acted, the most common reason was feeling stuck.
The proportion giving this reason increased from 29% in 2025 to 34% this year. A further 24% said they needed more time to think, 21% did not know whom to trust, 12% were embarrassed to ask for help, and 8% wanted another loan.
The increase in respondents feeling stuck is significant because DebtBusters identifies this as one of the four key indicators of money stress that have emerged from five years of tracker data.
Sager said DebtBusters was concerned about the increase because it could indicate that people felt they had exhausted their options. The decline in embarrassment about asking for help, however, was encouraging because embarrassment could prevent people from acting.
Feeling stuck was the top reason for inaction among the younger age groups, while needing more time to think and not knowing whom to trust became more prominent among older and higher-income respondents.
Sager said the trust issue was particularly important given the prevalence of financial scams. Consumers needed to be cautious about whom they approached, he said, but the finding also pointed to a need for greater education about credible options for obtaining help.
Debt counselling sentiment improves
Attitudes towards debt counselling appear to be improving.
DebtBusters said negative sentiment towards debt counselling has declined by 23% over the past three years, with concerns about issues such as its effect on credit scores, affordability, and trust becoming less prevalent.
The proportion of respondents considering debt counselling increased from 12% in 2025 to a five-year high of 16% this year. Half said they did not need debt counselling, while 33% said they did not know much about it.
Younger and lower-income respondents were more likely to say they lacked knowledge about debt counselling, whereas older and higher-income respondents were more likely to say they did not need it.
Separately, DebtBusters estimates that more than 80% of people in South Africa with unsustainable levels of debt do not make use of debt counselling.
Sager said access to appropriate financial advice and assistance remained important, particularly for lower-income consumers, and people should not wait until their financial difficulties had become entrenched before seeking help.
