Congratulations! Your SSIA has come to fruition after five years of hard saving. Now you're faced with a rather pleasant dilemma - what to do with all the lovely loot? By all means have a bit of a splurge - you deserve it! But what then?

Four out of five people intend to save at least part of their bonanza. So where's the best place to squirrel it away? Here are a few suggestions on making the most of your SSIA:

Save it!

You're a saver and proud of it. Just the thought of risking your money on volatile stock markets makes you break out in a cold sweat. So what are the best deposit accounts  into which you can lob your capital while you figure out what to do with it? Or maybe even to continue your monthly savings habit with peace of mind?

You should look for a bank that guarantees that their interest rates will move in line with the European base rate. This promise of honesty in dealing with depositors is reasonably new to the Irish market. Northern Rock pioneered a new standard by linking the interest rate paid to you to movements in the European base rate. This has started the very good habit of comparing your deposit rate against the European base rate.
But there are better interest rates on offer in the current feeding frenzy as banks bid to snap up your money. Halifax (6.65 per cent), AIB (6.6 per cent), Bank of Ireland (6.25 per cent), and Anglo Irish Bank (6 per cent) are all trying to attract SSIA cash. The catch is that with these high-interest rate accounts, you must save regularly and the monthly contribution you can make is limited. But if you had the patience to spread your savings among all four you could save b3,050 per month per person - b6,010 for a couple - and still remain within the monthly limits (see table on page 23).

The EBS Optimise account also offers a pretty good deal at five per cent interest. That's more than most deposit accounts pay. You can withdraw your money when you want and you can put your entire SSIA fund into it - even if it wasn't with the EBS in the first place. The key question is how long will all of these rates last? EBS guarantees that it will stick for at least three months and after that it is guaranteed to be not less than European Central Bank (ECB) rate until 30 April 2010. Ptsb also has an account paying five per cent once you are prepared to give 21-days' notice of any withdrawals.

Most of these rates are teasers designed purely to attract the bonanza of SSIA money now flowing into customers' bank accounts. They are unlikely to last forever. So be careful to check what sort of price guarantee applies to the interest rate. Bank of Ireland appears to offer a good deal in this regard as it guarantees to top the ECB rate by 2.75 per cent for 18 months.

Even when you get the best deal, bear in mind that over the long-term - after deducting inflation and DIRT from deposit accounts - the best you are likely to see are very small gains in the real value of your money, while you could make a loss in its real purchasing power. But that is the price you pay for peace of mind!

It makes sense to clear your ugly debt fat with the proceeds of your SSIA. But it will all come to nought unless you also commit to changing the behaviour that has led to the over-borrowing and over-spending. This means doing something we all hate to do - analysing spending and doing up a budget. Oh, it hurts. It's best to start by running a diary on your cash spending for at least a month to see where it is haemorrhaging.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy - a simple notebook and pen will do just fine. Add the results to your electronic spending, direct debits and standing orders to give yourself a helicopter view of your spending over a month. Now ruthlessly split it between necessary and optional spending. Your necessary spending should be less than your net earned income; the gap is how much you can allocate towards optional spending.

So which lifestyle debt should you tackle first with your savings scheme? The answer is the one that charges you the highest rate. Start at the top of a page and list down the lifestyle debts you owe - starting with the most expensive interest rate. Calculate the outstanding balance, the interest rate and the repayment costs.

Some of the more expensive debt can be moved to cheaper providers, such as zero per cent interest rates on balance transfers to new credit cards with the likes of Ulster Bank, for example. Calculate how much of a hole you can put in the debt mountain with your SSIA money and consider how quickly the rest can be gobbled up by redirecting the money you had been putting into your SSIA into lifestyle debt repayments. You don't have to become a social recluse, and you might just find that you rediscover the joy of a good night's sleep, waking up each day knowing that you - not the credit companies -  are in control of your life.

You want your money to grow above the rate of inflation and recognise you can't do so without taking investment risk. That's shorthand for volatility, but if you're prepared to stay in through thick and thin over at least ten years, the likelihood is that the purchasing power of your money will grow. So where to invest?

It's not written in stone and certainly not a science, but it is reasonable to expect long-term investment in shares in large companies to outperform inflation by four to six per cent per annum. So how can you invest safely without over-concentrating on the sparkling company today which becomes the dog of tomorrow? It's really very simple - you spread your money across a particular stock market comprising a whole host of companies that are the very largest in that market, and you pick the cheapest way of doing it.

Various studies have shown that up to 80 per cent of people who charge you money for managing shares underperform the stock market index, so a spread investment across the stock market of your choice is a highly efficient investment to make. But what to go for? The Irish stock market now has its own index that will spread your money across the top 20 companies in Ireland. This is a market that has, for many years, outperformed other stock markets, largely due to the performance of the Irish economy. It's not without its risks, bearing in mind that lots of companies - particularly banks in the Irish stock market - are very tied into the whole property story. A less volatile index is the Eurostoxx 50, comprised of 50 of the very biggest companies in Europe.

You can invest in these indices, and avoid at least one-third of the normal cost of doing so, by taking out your investment scheme with Quinn Life in Cavan. Quinn Life has an Irish Fund and a Europe Fund that invest in index tracking across the Irish and European stock markets. There are no entry costs, which can gobble up five per cent of your monthly contributions, and the annual charge for managing your money is just one per cent. (For more on these funds see Jill Kerby's article on page 31).

There is a once-off special offer from the Department of Finance, but it is only useful if you're on the low rate of income tax and earning less than b50,000 a year. In the offer, every b3 you put into an Approved Retirement Fund will be matched with b1 from the Revenue up to a ceiling of b2,500. The nice thing is that the normal exit tax on your SSIA savings profit of 23 per cent will be disregarded. Thereafter, your regular monthly contributions can be used as a full offset against your income tax. (For the full story on this scheme see page 27 of the Magazine).

However, bear in mind that when you put money into a retirement fund you're locking it away until retirement age, so the trick is to pick an investment fund that invests in things that make sense over the long-term.

Don't miss out on your SSIA windfall!

If you want to get your hands on all of your SSIA dosh, make sure you fill out your declaration form - SSIA4. These should have been issued to all account holders by the end of March.

The Revenue Commissioners have urged SSIA account holders to return the SSIA4 declaration to their financial institution before the
maturity date for accounts. "If an individual does not receive an SSIA4 declaration within three months of the maturity date, they should contact their financial institution directly," a spokesman said.

The form is not available from the Revenue; it will be sent to you by your financial institution. You must complete, sign and return within three months before the SSIA matures. If you do not complete the declaration, or fail to satisfy its requirements, a 23 per cent exit tax will be payable on withdrawal of the funds. This means that you could lose the government bonus on your savings. Make sure your financial institution has your current postal address, to ensure that you receive your SSIA4 form in good time.
If the form is filled out then only the profit earned on your investment will be taxed at 23 per cent. In the case of an SSIA that is a deposit account this profit will be the interest earned on your investment. Your financial institution will deduct this tax and forward it to the Revenue Commissioners. No other tax applies to your SSIA. (Source: Becketts).