South Africans are under financial pressure, but many are responding with a new kind of discipline: cutting extras, paying down debt, boosting emergency savings and trying to take more control of their money.
That is the broad picture emerging from a cluster of recent studies, including Franc's inaugural Wealth Index, TransUnion's latest Consumer Pulse Study and new commentary from earned wage access platform Paymenow.
Together, the findings suggest that while incomes matter, habits may matter more.
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Franc's Wealth Index, based on responses from 3,952 financially active South Africans, found a median score of just 45 out of 100. In plain terms, many households are neither collapsing nor thriving, but stuck in the uncomfortable middle.
The report's sharpest conclusion is that behaviours such as budgeting, saving regularly, managing debt and planning ahead often outperform age, education and income as predictors of financial wellbeing.
Dr Thomas Brennan, co-founder and CEO of Franc, said many people assume that higher earnings automatically solve money problems.
"What the report showed for me... is the moment you're able to put in place the habits, like saving regularly, tracking your expenses, keeping debt manageable and developing a financial plan, you see a disproportional improvement in financial wellbeing," he said.
That may be encouraging news in a country where salary growth is uneven and unemployment remains stubbornly high. It suggests some gains can come from behaviour changes, even before a bigger...
