The South African Money Quiz: how does your money compare?

The South African Money Quiz is six questions and a score out of 100. People still want the rank that follows it: a line that says you save more than some percentage of South Africans your age. That rank is the thing that gets shared. It is also the thing the published surveys do not give us.

Old Mutual's 2025 Savings & Investment Monitor does publish an average. Working South Africans aged 30 to 49 put 22% of household income into savings. Ages 18 to 29 averaged 27%. Ages 50 to 65 averaged 18%. The whole sample averaged 22%. There is no table that says what share of that group saves less than you.

What "your age" can honestly mean

The monitor is an online survey of employed people aged 18 to 65, earning at least R8,000 a month in personal income. Fieldwork ran from 17 April to 12 May 2025. The sample is 1,621 people, weighted to working South Africans with UNISA Bureau of Market Research profiles. It is not every household in the country.

Stats SA's Labour Market Dynamics report for 2024 put median monthly earnings at R6 000. That is a wider group than the people Old Mutual surveyed. A quiz that used the median to say "you earn more than half of South Africa" would still be guessing at everyone who is not at the median. This one does not ask for a salary, and it does not do that.

If you are over 65, the nearest published savings column is ages 50 to 65. The quiz says so. It does not pretend the column includes retirees.

How does your money compare?

Take someone aged 30 to 49. They save 10% to 17% of household income, which sits below the 22% average for that age. They sometimes spend outside the budget. Debt repayments are 15% to 19% of income, the band that contains the 19% age average. They are up to date on credit. They are not dipping into savings. Retirement is a goal, and they have only just started.

The sketch scores that set at 67/100. Mixed against these benchmarks. The savings line is: Your savings sit below the 22% of household income that working South Africans aged 30 to 49 reported.

Old Mutual's 2025 monitor publishes averages and answer shares for working people earning at least R8,000 a month. It does not publish a percentile, so this quiz will not say you save more than a percentage of people your age.

Change any answer in the quiz and the score moves with the same weights. 67 is this mixed month, not a number the page shows before you answer.

What the points are counting

Six parts add up to 100. The weights are FinWise's, so the answers can be one number. They are not in the source reports. A higher number means the answers sit closer to the sturdier side of these particular benchmarks. It does not mean a bank, a bureau, or a planner would agree.

Self-rated confidence that you already have enough for retirement scores 12, under the 15 for solid progress. Confidence is a different question from being on track. The quiz does not award the Treasury figure.

Retirement, without the 6%

96% of working respondents said retirement saving is important. 28% named a comfortable retirement as a savings goal. Among those who named it, 47% said they were comfortably on track or had almost reached it. At ages 30 to 49, inside that subgroup, it was 42%. At ages 50 to 65, the report's own line is 55%, and the report still says over 40% of those older consumers are not on track.

50% of all working respondents were not confident they have enough. 28% scored themselves 9 or 10 out of 10. That confidence is not the same statistic as the one 10X Investments quotes from National Treasury in its 2023/2024 Retirement Reality Report: about 6% of the population is on track to retire comfortably. The same report says 29% of people over 50 who had a plan said it was definitely or probably not on track. The quiz repeats that limit. It cannot tell you that you are inside the 6%.

If the longer path is the question you actually have, the retirement calculator and the R1 million guide stay in rands. A quiz answer is not a contribution rate.

Debt, in two different units

The quiz compares debt repayments with the Old Mutual age averages, because that survey asked people how they split household income. The sample average is 19% to debt servicing. Ages 18 to 29 reported 15%. Ages 30 to 49 reported 19%. Ages 50 to 65 reported 20%.

The Reserve Bank's national accounts are a different measurement. Household debt was 61.3% of nominal disposable income in the second quarter of 2026. The cost of servicing that debt was 8.4% of disposable income in the first quarter of 2026. The September 2026 bulletin did not restate a second-quarter service ratio, so this page does not invent one. Neither Reserve Bank ratio is the threshold in the quiz.

Credit standing comes from the National Credit Regulator, not from a guess at a bureau score. In the quarter to June 2025, 63.95% of credit-active consumers were in good standing: current, or no more than one or two missed instalments, with no adverse listing and no judgment. 36.05% had an impaired record. The regulator's first-quarter 2026 consumer credit report says bureau monitoring was unavailable because of a new form, so June 2025 is the figure used here. The quiz cannot see a credit file.

TransUnion's second-quarter 2026 industry report put account-level serious delinquency on credit cards, three or more months in arrears, at 13.1%. That is a market rate. It is not a personal score, and Experian does not have a personal percentile on this page because no matching public distribution was used.

If the balances are the part you want to move, the debt payoff calculator compares avalanche and snowball in rands. A purchase that only fits by skipping savings belongs in Can I actually afford this?.

The other habits on the same monitor

69% of working respondents said they often or sometimes spend outside the budget. 45% were dipping into savings. The dipping figure is not published by age, so the quiz does not invent an age split. It also does not ask whether you could cover three months of expenses. That rule of thumb is common. This monitor does not publish the share of people who hold it.

Stokvel membership is in the same report, on a base filtered to Black respondents. That is a real finding about a real savings habit. It is not a national percentage to put next to every person who takes the quiz, so it is not one of the six questions.

Sources

Then track the month the score cannot see

A sketch answered from memory will drift the week the debit order changes. FinWise keeps the savings, the repayments, and what actually left the account.

The South African Money Quiz

This is an educational sketch, not financial, credit, tax, or retirement advice. The point weights are not a bureau score and not a National Credit Act assessment.