Affordability self-check
Enter your monthly income and your monthly expenses and this shows what is genuinely spare, and roughly what instalment that supports. It is a rule of thumb to help you decide whether to apply at all — it is not an affordability assessment, which only a registered credit provider may perform and which looks at considerably more than two numbers.
Include everything that leaves your account: rent, transport, food, electricity, insurance, policies, school fees and every existing debit order. A lender’s affordability assessment counts all of them, plus a prescribed minimum living expense figure.
Looks workable
You have about R3 000 spare each month. As a rule of thumb, keep any instalment at or below R1 500 — roughly half of what is genuinely left over.
How a lender’s assessment differs from this
A credit provider verifies rather than asks. It reads your bank statements for actual income and actual commitments, applies its own minimum living expense assumptions, and queries at least one credit bureau. Where your stated expenses and your statements disagree, the statements win.
It will also count commitments you might not think of as debt: insurance premiums, policies, school fees, anything that leaves by debit order. This is why applicants who feel comfortably able to afford an instalment are sometimes declined on affordability.
Use this tool to avoid an application you already know will fail. If the spare figure here is thin, it will be thinner in the lender’s calculation, not fatter.
A declined application costs you something
Every application logs an enquiry on your credit record, and several in a short period make the next lender more cautious. Checking affordability first is not just prudence — it protects the record you will need for the application that does fit.
Check these three things before you sign — here or anywhere
- The lender’s NCRCP number is published on its own site, and it checks out in the National Credit Regulator’s register.
- The pre-agreement quote breaks out the total cost of credit: interest, initiation fee, service fee and VAT — as one figure you can compare.
- Nobody asks you for an upfront “release fee”. A registered credit provider never charges you before it pays out.
Related
Sources and last checked
- National Credit Act 34 of 2005 and its regulations — Government, as at 10 August 2026.
Page last checked 10 August 2026. Statutory caps and lender terms change — confirm anything you intend to rely on with the provider or the National Credit Regulator. Found something wrong? Tell us and we will correct it.