Those taking home more than R20,000 per month have a debt to income ratio of 150% while the ratio for those taking home R35,000 or more is 189%. 

Sager said these ratios are the highest they have been since DebtBusters began analysing debt counselling applicants’ data in 2016.

“Given these alarming ratios, it’s no wonder consumers are feeling more financially stressed.

DebtBusters’ annual Money Stress Tracker, one of the largest surveys about how financial stress affects other aspects of South Africans’ lives, found respondents who said they were stressed about money had increased from 70% in 2022 to 78% this year. 

Of these, 94% said financial stress was affecting their home lives, 78% their work life and 77% believed it was affecting their health.

Sager said the number of consumers successfully completing debt counselling had increased more than seven-fold since 2016.

In Q2 2023 alone, consumers who received their clearance certificates paid back more than R450m worth of debt to creditors.

TimesLIVE