Istanbul blanketed in snow as heavy storm continues for 3 more days
~ Courtesy of SG
Food Lovers Are Flocking to Istanbul and so Should You A new wave of culinary creativity and innovation is cresting in Turkey’s largest city.
Istanbul is peppered with tourist attractions to explore even if there is lots of snow ❄️ around the city center
The grand Ottoman-era Dolmabahce Palace (£25; millisaraylar.gov.tr) and Galata Tower, built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian around AD507 (£25; muze.gen.tr). Kabatas pier is half an hour’s walk away for hourly cruises down the Bosphorus, between the city’s European and Asian shores (£18; bosphorustours.com).
The grand Ottoman-era Dolmabahce Palace was built in 1843
ALAMY
Otherwise the metro is the best way to get around to sights, including those in the old city of Sultanahmet, on the European side of the city. Don’t miss the Hagia Sophia, a soaring architectural wonder with a 55m-high dome built as a church in the 5th century and later turned into a mosque (£21; muze.gen.tr). The ancient underground pools of the Basilica Cistern are just next door — they once supplied water to the city’s Byzantine palaces and were rediscovered in the 16th century, when locals found they could lower buckets under their basements to catch fish (£22; yerebatan.com).
Save a whole day for strolling around the 15th-century Grand Bazaar, one of the world’s largest covered markets. Stock up on flower-oil perfumes, coffee, pastel-coloured pashminas and bags of sugary Turkish delight at any of the 4,000 stalls spanning 61 streets.
As you shop, refuel at Aynen Durum, a no-frills kebab restaurant serving meat dishes piled high with salad (mains from £2). For something a little fancier head to Lokanta 1741, a beautifully converted 300-year-old hammam serving traditional mezze, seafood dishes and a pizza-like dish called pide (mains from £34; lokanta1741.com)
SMH the most read story today - Just how bad is it to retire with a mortgage?
There is a fierce debate – and a fairly life-changing one – about how much money you really need to retire comfortably.
There’s long been a “standard”, called exactly that, calculated by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, which, currently, looks like this:
- The annual cost of a comfy retirement is $73,031 for a couple and $51,814 for a single (until age 85, when expenses fall – less travel; more medical – along with the overall income requirement).
- The lump sum that provides this level of annual income, from retirement at age 67, is $690,000 for a couple and $595,000 for singles.
Now, groups including the Grattan Institute contend that such annual income would, in fact, afford a “lavish” lifestyle. But how do you think you’d fare on $73,031 (couple) or $51,814 (single) a year? Because – though ASFA’s modelling is granular and robust – spending is a very individual thing.
For comparison, the “standard” includes some domestic travel ($86.09 a week for a couple) and even more infrequent international trips ($37.75 a week), maybe one good-value restaurant meal a week ($98), a takeaway meal more like every two weeks ($32.95) and probably two streaming services ($12.77).
But however close this is to covering the lifestyle you’d like in retirement, there is something notably, crucially absent in the “ideal” income amount: rent or a mortgage.
If outright home ownership at retirement is the comfortable-lifestyle dream, be sure to use all the help on offer to get there.
The annual expenses (and therefore the lump sum that generates enough to cover them) only includes the cost of running a house; principally bills, rates and insurance.
So whether you are mortgage-free is going to make an enormous difference to the relevance of this projection and the super (or other investments) you need. And with interest rates and home loan repayments comparatively high for so long now, that’s feeding into retirement anxiety for many.
Most Australians (59 per cent) over 50 can no longer see themselves achieving a “comfortable retirement”, says the new Rethinking Retirement report from Colonial First State (CFS).
And compared to 12 months ago, fewer retirees report enjoying a comfortable retirement now – down from 71 per cent 12 months ago to 64 per cent today.
The CFS report, which surveyed a representative sample of 2250 Australians, also gives insight into just how much pressure ongoing repayments puts on retirees’ purse strings. One in four – 22 per cent – are using their super pension to pay off remaining debt. But, tellingly, this jumps to 30 per cent for those who do not own a home. The report also reveals:
- Retired renters (43 per cent) spend less on healthcare and medical expenses than retired home owners (63 per cent).
- Retired home owners (53 per cent) are more likely to be able to fund travel and holidays than retired renters (27 per cent).
- Retired home owners (54 per cent) are more likely to be able to fund leisure activities than retired renters (26 per cent).
So forget any disagreements about the cost of retirement; home ownership indisputably makes a significant difference to your ultimate standard of living. What, then, can be done to try and achieve it?
Well, the system stacked in favour – if not of the mortgage – of loading super in at the end.
Firstly, in the last 10 years of work – when you are only 10 years away from being able to access your super – there is an argument for choosing to make tax-advantaged super contributions instead of extra mortgage payments, with a view to clearing your mortgage from those super funds at retirement.
Remember, mortgage payments are made with post-tax dollars (with tax as high as 47 per cent) whereas super contributions are taxed at only 15 per cent (if you make them by salary sacrifice or a personal deductible contribution).
This super-charged strategy could pay off your mortgage sooner and cheaper. There is also an opportunity to downsize, which CFS’s report says 13 per cent of us want to do, and shelter a chunk of money from the sale of your home into super.
If outright home ownership at retirement is the comfortable-lifestyle dream, be sure to use all the help on offer to get there.
