This means you can buy ahead of the rush, using interest-only credit to tide you over until the time your SSIA matures. Interest-only keeps the payments down. Once the SSIA pays out, you can use your savings to pay back the borrowings.

Take Lombard, the car finance arm of Ulster Bank. It offers interest-only finance for up to 18 months at 8.5% interest, provided you buy before the end of the month.

This means you could borrow 18,000 to buy a new car today and, by paying interest only, keep the cost at 122.79 a month until you get your hands on your SSIA. When this happens, you should have enough money to clear most if not all of the loan.

But crafty financing usually takes a back seat when it comes to buying a car.

According to Chris Hanlon of Permanent TSB Finance, which provides finance for Nissan, Opel and Fiat among others, cash is no longer king in the motor trade. "The key is confidence rather than cash, " he says.

Confidence is in plentiful supply, judging from recent trends. Sales this year are set to break the record set six years ago when the lure of a '00' registration plate caused a scramble for new cars on garage forecourts.

We are also buying bigger cars, according to Hanlon, especially gas-guzzling SUVs.

The result is a dramatic fall in demand for basic runabouts such as the Fiat Punto. Back in 2000, cars in this class ruled the road, accounting for one in every three cars sold. Today that has slipped to one in six.

Whatever model you have your eye on, spare some thought for how best to pay for it, especially if you do not have a well-funded SSIA or other savings coming your way. Without some advance planning, you could end up shackled with an expensive financing plan that can be difficult to ditch.

Mary O'Dea, consumer director at the Financial Regulator, says many people have only the vaguest notion of what they are getting into when signing up for the car finance packages sold by car dealers.

"The finance offered by a garage can be convenient, but it is very important to know what sort of finance you are buying, " she says. "Some people assume they are signing up for a loan, when in fact they have entered into a hire purchase agreement and will not own the car until the final payment."

Another pitfall is that HP locks you into a rigid repayment schedule that leaves little room for manoeuvre if your circumstances change.

The result is highlighted by an example provided by the Financial Regulator.

Joe is a motorist who signs up for a five-year HP contract to buy a car worth 13,300. After two years, he discovers he can no longer afford the payments of 276.60 a month. But Joe cannot simply return the car to the finance company. Under the laws of hire purchase, you cannot walk away from the agreement until half of the total hire purchase cost is paid.

In this example, the monthly payments over five years, plus once-off costs such as deposits, documentation fees and completion fees, bring the HP cost to 17,400. After two years, Joe will have paid almost 7,400, so he will have to find another 1,300 to break out of the contract.

That's a tough requirement for somebody who is already feeling the financial pinch.

The big advantage of HP is convenience, with garages able to arrange finance on the spot while you are still kicking the tyres. It can even work out cheaper than a bank or credit union loan because, with the finance company keeping ownership until the final instalment is paid, there is less risk for the lender.

According to a spokesman for GE Money, the biggest provider of forecourt finance:

"Finance through the dealer has traditionally been regarded as the convenient but expensive option. So it may come as a surprise to some to learn that it can often be cheaper than other sources of finance."

The GE spokesman quoted a typical interest rate of 8.9% for a five-year HP package to buy a 19,000 car, adding that the cost can be even lower if the distributor has a special promotion, such as a 0% finance offer.

Remember, too, that your business is more valuable to the garage when you sign up for its finance package because it gets a cut of the profit from the finance company. This should theoretically strengthen your hand when haggling for a better price on the car.

For the very best rate of interest, many people avoid car loans and HP arrangements altogether and finance their new cars by topping up their mortgages instead.

While home loan rates are on the way up, you should have no difficulty remortgaging at under 4% interest.

That is less than half of the rate you would be charged on a bank loan or HP contract.

But the savings can be misleading, leaving you still paying for a car years after it has been sent to the scrap heap.

Someone who had an 18,000 car loan over five years at 8.45% would, for example, have to repay 366 a month. If they added the loan to a 20year mortgage, it would cut the monthly payment to 105, assuming they were paying a typical rate of 3.6%.

The catch, however, is that the amount of interest charged would rocket. Instead of paying 4,132 in interest over the term of the car loan, they would pay 7,277 interest on the mortgage. This is because they would owe the money for four times longer.

The Financial Regulator has warned borrowers that the easy option is seldom the best option. "The rate of interest on your mortgage is cheaper than personal loan rates but it can actually cost you more if you repay the new loan over a much longer term than the original loan."

There seems to be about as many finance plans and packages as there are car models to choose from. Just remember that, no matter what they claim, nobody has yet come up with a completely painless way of paying for your motoring dreams.

THE CHEAP WAY TO END UP IN A NEW NISSAN MICRA DEBORAH MCCORMACK bought her "rst car, a 2005 Nissan Micra, last year using hire purchase "nance provided by GE Money.

A 24-year-old trainee accountant with regional airline Aer Arann, Deborah initially planned to buy a second-hand car with a loan from her local credit union. After discussing "nance plans with Cathy Comerford, business manager at Windsor Airside, a Nissan dealer close to her job at Dublin airport, Deborah realised she could afford to drive away in a brand-new car.

"I was looking for something to get me on the road, probably a '00 or '01 model, " she says. "But after discussing "nance with Cathy, I discovered I could buy brand-new for little more than the cost of the credit union loan."

Even though the HP contract is for "ve years, compared with three years for the credit union loan, Deborah decided it made more sense to buy new.

"It works out better when you take into account the lower running costs on a new car and the fact it won't need an NCT until it is four years old, " she says.

The HP payments cost 215 a month, and Deborah hopes her low mileage will mean a good resale value when the time comes to trade up.

"I've only done 5,000 miles in the year I've owned the car so it comes under the heading 'one lady driver, low mileage', " she says. "I plan to keep it for a few more years, and hopefully when I qualify I'll be able to afford something bigger. The Micra is perfect for now because it's cheap to run."