Shenzhen's "Zero-Debt" Residents: The Hidden Price Behind Their Sober Mindset

As the saying goes, "Money earned in Shenzhen is spent in Shenzhen; not a single cent goes home." While many lament the difficulty of saving money, an even more piercing voice emerges: In Shenzhen, how many young people aren't in debt?

This isn't fear-mongering; it's a cold reality. The "China Household Wealth Survey Report" released by the Institute of Finance and Banking at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in early 2025 shows that the debt rate among the post-90s generation is as high as 78.3%, with an average debt of 121,000 yuan.

As soon as the monthly salary arrives, it goes to paying off credit cards and Huabei, then rent. After this routine, the account balance is reduced to a fraction. This isn't just living paycheck to paycheck; it's living second to second.

Some joke that landlords and Huabei are practically the two "dads" of contemporary young people.

But in this era of spreading uncertainty, a new trend is quietly emerging: an increasing number of young people in Shenzhen are making "zero debt" their goal.

Among them, some have always remained sober and resolute—no mortgage, no car loan, credit cards and Huabei completely shut off; some were once mired in debt but, after a sudden awakening, cleared it all and made it to shore; many more are still on the arduous journey of paying off and downsizing their debt, but have already embraced "zero debt" as their goal and creed.

As the old saying goes, living in the capital is no easy feat. In Shenzhen, the phrase "zero debt" sounds tough, but achieving it is far from easy.

01

Shenzhen Residents

Each Has Their Own Debt

In Shenzhen, when someone makes "zero debt" their goal and principle, the underlying reasons are often not as simple as just self-discipline. From falling deep into debt, to desperately clearing it, to trying hard to maintain it—this is the true trajectory for most people moving toward "zero debt."

Unfolding the catalog of Shenzhen's debts, every household has its own difficult story. Often, the more desperate the debt, the greater the determination to achieve "zero debt."

The easiest trap to fall into is the "boiling frog" of consumer installments.

When Lao Wang first graduated and started working in Nanshan, his monthly salary was only 4,000 yuan. To appear as "decent" as his colleagues, he gritted his teeth and bought the latest iPhone using a 24-month interest-free installment plan. "At the time, I thought repaying just two or three hundred a month was nothing—skipping one meal out would cover it."

But once the floodgates to "easily obtaining nice things" were opened, desire could no longer be contained.

Later, he fell into the "massive pit" of photography—a Sony mirrorless camera, various lenses, a gimbal... One installment bill after another piled up, and without realizing it, his monthly repayment amount snowballed from a few hundred to several thousand.

The combination of electronic payments and installments weakened the pain of spending money, making him mistakenly believe he possessed purchasing power far beyond his income.

But reality's boomerang came fast. Over the next few years, he experienced the most suffocating days of his life.

A total debt of tens of thousands of yuan left him gasping for air. Before his salary could even warm his pockets, it had to be transferred into the bank's repayment app. He didn't dare get sick, didn't dare quit his job, and even when splitting the bill at a gathering with friends, he had to calculate in his head for ages.

"It's like running on a treadmill; you can't stop, because if you do, you'll fall."

More painful than consumer loans are business loans paid for by ambition.

Thirty-year-old A-Liang partnered with a friend a few years ago to open a craft beer shop in Longhua, taking on hundreds of thousands in business loans.

Eventually, they couldn't sustain it, and the shop closed. But the bills arrived on time every month. Watching the loans approach overdue status, the fear of becoming a discredited debtor pressed on his chest like a stone, keeping him awake night after night.

If "interest-free installments" are deceptive, then mortgages are adults' most explicit "ultimate Huabei."

Youzi and her husband are currently striving toward "zero debt."

In 2018, they bought a marital home in Changsha with a commercial loan of 760,000 yuan over a 30-year term. For the past seven years, they've been earning money in Shenzhen to pay the mortgage on their hometown property. When interest rates were high in the early days, the monthly payment was over 4,000 yuan; later, with LPR cuts, it dropped to 3,400.

One day last year, Youzi calculated carefully: after seven years of repayments, only 100,000 yuan of the principal had been paid off, while over 200,000 yuan in interest had been paid, leaving a principal balance of over 660,000 yuan.

This meant they had been working for the bank for free all these years. The powerlessness of being tightly shackled by a long-term mortgage instantly struck her.

"When our income was constantly growing, I didn't feel it, but now it feels like a huge loss," Youzi admitted. In the current economic climate, unless you are good at trading stocks or funds, the returns from wealth management or fixed deposits simply can't outpace mortgage interest.

Debt is like a quagmire; most people only see clearly that they are already trapped with no way out after they've sunk in.

02

The Moment of Clearing to Zero

No Wild Joy

Whatever the catalyst, when those rolling numbers on the bill truly hit zero, that complex feeling of relief mixed with exhaustion is something only those who have experienced it can understand.

For Lao Wang, who was mired in the installment trap, his turning point toward "zero debt" came at a critical life node—preparing to get married.

At the time, he was being battered by various installment bills, "robbing Peter to pay Paul" every month to scrape together the minimum payments, let alone having any savings. Paper can't wrap fire; Lao Wang bit the bullet and confessed the tens of thousands in debt to his fiancée, which led to a huge argument.

Only then did Lao Wang truly panic. The so-called decency he had bought with installment consumption over the past few years was not only a bubble, but it had also nearly smashed his future life to pieces.

To give their future family a clean slate, Lao Wang put aside his pride and borrowed money from his parents.

A man nearly thirty, about to start a family, confessed to his parents over the phone about the rotten debt he had incurred due to his consumer desires. Faced with his parents' prolonged silence, he was overwhelmed with shame. Using his parents' hard-earned money to fill the hole dug by his own vanity was an exceptionally agonizing experience.

After receiving the money from his family, Lao Wang paid off all his installment bills in one lump sum. Watching all the pending repayment amounts on the screen revert to "0," he let out a long sigh of relief.

"There was no wild joy, only a sense of exhaustion like recovering from a serious illness, along with deep guilt and lingering fear," he recalled.

At that moment, he secretly vowed never to touch installments again in his life, "terrified of that loss of control where the people closest to me have to share my anxiety."

Later, Lao Wang made progress at work and got a raise. He spent over two years gradually paying back the tens of thousands he owed his parents, relying on frugality and weekend part-time jobs. The day he truly didn't owe anyone a single cent came much later than the bank app hitting zero, but that was the moment he felt truly at peace.

A-Liang also turned to his parents, but emptying the elderly couple's pension wasn't enough to fill the bank's hole, so he had to swallow his pride and borrow from friends everywhere.

The debt didn't disappear; it merely shifted, and even added a debt of gratitude. He realized belatedly that this was even more suffocating than owing the bank.

Owing the bank means the tension and embarrassment of collection calls; owing friends is a long-term psychological torture.

For a long time, he didn't dare initiate contact with his friends. Seeing the buddies who lent him money buying houses and having kids, he even felt guilty just liking their posts.

To pay off his friends and family as quickly as possible, he found a fixed-salary job in Futian, aggressively cut his living costs, made excuses to decline gatherings or trips, and hesitated for over half a month just to buy a new e-bike.

Over the years, A-Liang has paid off most of what he owed his parents and friends. Although he hasn't completely made it to shore, his mindset is much lighter.

"Just push through a little longer and I can pay it all off; no more feeling guilty about owing friends money."

His attitude toward debt has also turned into absolute reverence: "Without sufficient risk tolerance, an ordinary person forcing leverage is gambling with their whole family's fate."

Youzi and her husband haven't completely paid off their mortgage either, but she has already tasted the sweetness of early repayment.

Between November last year and March this year, she and her husband took out their savings three times to prepay 300,000 yuan of their mortgage. This move directly shortened the remaining 23-year mortgage term to 10 years, equivalent to saving 230,000 yuan in interest.

"Watching the remaining principal number drop bit by bit gives me so much security; it feels like every repayment brings me one step closer to freedom."

She self-deprecatingly admits she woke up too late, missing the golden window for early repayment in the first 5 to 8 years.

For ordinary wage earners, getting out of debt doesn't mean suddenly unlocking an overpowered life script.

In Shenzhen, maintaining "zero debt" often requires paying hidden costs.

03

Behind Zero Debt

Gains and Losses

Lao Wang, who suffered the beating of installment bills, might say he'll "never touch them again," but completely resisting the temptation of consumerism is easier said than done.

In the first six months after clearing his bills, he experienced several severe "withdrawal symptoms." Once, when a long-anticipated new phone was released, he read numerous reviews and social media posts, ultimately failing to resist opening the purchase page and expertly checking the 24-month interest-free option.

But just as his finger was about to press pay, the memory of the humiliation of asking his parents for money to pay off his debts flashed through his mind, and he locked the screen as if electrocuted.

To avoid repeating his mistakes, he uninstalled product recommendation apps and turned off e-commerce push notifications. Lao Wang's sobriety stems from fear.

Being completely insulated from consumption is essentially slapping his own vanity in the face countless times in the dead of night, forcibly suppressing the urge to spend money.

This pain of slamming on the brakes in the face of desire is the necessary price to maintain "zero debt."

For Youzi, achieving early repayment and "zero debt" requires extreme savings discipline and a prolonged downgrade of material desires.

To scrape together each 100,000 yuan lump sum for early repayment, she slashed almost all non-essential expenses from her life.

Weekend entertainment used to mean hitting the malls and dining out; now, it's all been downgraded to strolling in free parks. Twenty or thirty-yuan milk teas and coffees are completely cut out; on workdays, she buys groceries and brings her own lunch, living with meticulous budgeting.

After calculating the bank's interest, her attitude is now utterly resolute: she'd rather be tight on cash now to keep aggressively saving, aiming to clear the mortgage entirely next year and never work for the bank for free another day.

Precisely because they have seen through the struggles of most people in the debt quagmire, a tiny minority choose to firmly reject it from the very beginning.

A-Jie has worked as a programmer in Nanshan for seven years. He has no lending or financial apps on his phone, and he manually set his Huabei limit to zero.

This instinctive defense isn't innate; it was shaped by what he saw and heard growing up.

His family's financial situation was modest when he was young. To support his schooling, his parents borrowed money from many relatives and often had to calculate how to explain, "Give us another year to delay."

He always remembered that feeling of inferiority. After starting work, he set a hard-and-fast rule for himself: never owe a single cent, whether to friends and family or to a bank.

"It's not that I can't afford certain things; I just don't want to be tied down by debt. That feeling is uncomfortable."

He insists on paying in full for anything he buys, provided he truly needs it.

His attitude toward cars and houses is the same. "In the future, if I buy a house, I'll definitely pay in full; I don't want to be a mortgage slave. If I can never achieve that, then so be it—renting is quite nice too."

Although many colleagues and friends have told him he's "too conservative," and some relatives label him as a "failure" or "not doing well" because he has neither a car nor a house after so long in Shenzhen, A-Jie doesn't care. The solid savings in his bank account give him the confidence to say "no" in both work and life.

Whether it's Lao Wang's restraint, A-Liang's reverence, Youzi's resolve, or A-Jie's sobriety, they are all using their own methods to desperately reclaim control over their lives.

Some say that "zero debt" is the ultimate life configuration for contemporary young people.

But in my view, "zero debt" is not some standard answer; it is merely a way of living, and it comes with its own hidden costs. Its essence has never been about those zeroed-out numbers on a bill, but about gradually seizing back the sense of control over your life into your own hands.

This doesn't mean that early consumption and leverage are inherently wrong. As long as they are within an affordable range, they are also reasonable choices. Whether one is in debt or not has never been the yardstick for judging right or wrong.

What truly matters is whether you know yourself well enough—understanding what stage you are at, what kind of life you want, and what price you can afford to pay. Then, take responsibility for every decision you make.

Rather than agonizing over which side to stand on, it's better to ask yourself: Can this decision let me sleep soundly at night?