Which is why now might be the best time to think about clearing some of that debt. Among all the talk of new cars, holidays, home improvements and even highreturn investments, debt reduction might not be the sexiest way to spend your SSIA. But it might just represent the wisest means of managing your money.

The figures speak for themselves. Take a fairly standard car loan of 10,000, with an interest rate of, say, 8%. Just to service the interest payments alone, people will have to pay about 800 per year.

But to earn that money, people will have to make 1,600 per year before tax.

A person's 10,000 SSIA would clear that debt nicely, especially considering the fact that it will only have cost 8,000 to amass that 10,000 (not even counting any interest accrued). But now consider instead putting that 10,000 SSIA in a deposit account, earning maybe 4% in interest (closer to 3% after DIRT). In order not to lose on your car loan, you would have had to be making 16% pretax on any cash invested (which is probably not going to happen through a regular savings account).

It would be the equivalent of borrowing money at 16% pre tax, and putting it on deposit at 4% pre tax -which would not make sense to any but the most masochistic of savers. But that is precisely what thousands, maybe up to one million people will be doing with their money. Car loans, credit cards and personal loans all come with high interest rates, while deposit accounts, although improving, still have relatively low rates. All of which should make the decision a no-brainer, although few enough people will actually use their hard earned savings to reduce their debts.

The one tricky area here is in the arena of mortgages, which will naturally represent more of an investment, and will come with an interest rate that will be closer to what could be achieved in a deposit account. But practically all other forms of debt should be reduced in order to get the best out of your money - and the SSIA could represent the best opportunity that people will ever have to achieve just that.