According to TurkStat (TÜİK), consumer prices in Türkiye were 29.73% higher in September 2026 than a year earlier. At that pace, money left on the side melts where it sits. Saving still makes sense, as long as your maths takes inflation into account.
This article covers three ideas you need when saving through high inflation: purchasing power, real return and the rising price of your goal. All three lead to the same question: “Will the money I save be enough for what I want to buy?”
1. Purchasing power: same money, less stuff
₺100,000 kept at home is still ₺100,000 a year later. But if prices rise 30% a year, its value in today’s money falls like this:
| Time | Value in today’s money | Loss |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | ₺76,923 | 23.1% |
| 3 years | ₺45,517 | 54.5% |
| 5 years | ₺26,933 | 73.1% |
The first-year loss is 23.1%, not 30%, because you divide ₺100,000 by 1.30. But the loss grows fast over the years: after five years the money buys only a little more than a quarter of what it buys today.
Try it with your own amount and expected inflation in the purchasing power calculator.
2. Real return: what does “I made 40%” mean?
The rate you see on a deposit or an investment is the nominal return. What matters is the real return, what is left after inflation. It is not a simple subtraction. The correct formula is the Fisher equation:
Real return = (1 + nominal return) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1
An example: a deposit paying 42% a year, with inflation at 29.73%.
- Ignoring tax, the real return is 1.42 ÷ 1.2973 − 1 = 9.5%.
- In Türkiye, withholding tax is deducted from interest on time deposits. Under the current decree it is 17.5% for TL deposits up to 6 months and 15% up to 1 year. With 15% withholding the net nominal return is 35.7% and the real return falls to 4.6%.
“I made 42%” is true but incomplete. Your purchasing power actually rose by about 4.6%. If the return stays below inflation, you gain in nominal terms and lose in real terms.
More detail: Nominal vs real return. Try your own numbers: real return calculator.
3. Your goal grows too: today’s price is not tomorrow’s
If you save for a goal, such as a car or a down payment, inflation works on both sides. Your savings grow, and so does the price of your goal. “I’ll save ₺900,000 for a ₺900,000 car” assumes car prices will stand still.
Housing is a good example. According to the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) House Price Index, house prices rose 22.3% in nominal terms in the year to September 2026. If your goal is a home, look not only at the size of the down payment but at how much it grows while you save.
The right question is: “In which month will my savings catch up with my goal’s price in that month?” The two curves, your savings and your goal’s price, cross at some point. That point is your date.
So what should you do?
This article does not give investment advice; which instrument you use is your decision. Whatever you choose, a few habits help when inflation is high:
- Read every number in today’s money. “₺5 million in 10 years” looks impressive. Don’t decide before checking what it is worth today.
- Count returns after tax. Withholding tax, commissions and custody fees eat into real return. Small differences grow over the years.
- Project your goal’s price. Plan for the price on the date you expect to buy, not today’s.
- Don’t rely on a single forecast. Nobody knows what inflation will be in the coming years. In the CBRT’s October 2026 Survey of Market Participants, expected inflation 12 months ahead was 23.89%, but participants’ answers were spread over a range. Planning with more than one scenario makes that uncertainty visible. See Why three scenarios?
- Add regularly. Small monthly amounts grow with compounding. The earlier you start, the bigger the snowball. See it in the compound interest calculator.
How Kartopu calculates it
Kartopu brings these three ideas onto one screen:
- Add your records. Your deposits, gold, foreign currency and other assets. Gold and currencies are valued at current prices; you see the total in one place.
- Enter your goal at today’s price. Kartopu projects tomorrow’s price using the price growth you assume.
- Play with assumptions in plans. Set inflation, return and your pay rise year by year. See side by side which month you reach your goal in the optimistic, base and pessimistic scenarios.
The calculations run on your phone; your records never go to a server.
Sources
- TurkStat (TÜİK), Consumer Price Index, September 2026 (5 October 2026).
- CBRT, House Price Index, September 2026.
- CBRT, Survey of Market Participants, October 2026.
- Presidential Decree No. 10041, Official Gazette, 9 July 2025; extended to 31 December 2026 by Decree No. 11444.
This article is general information, not investment advice. Figures are as of the publication date.