The new sod

With only 42 days left before the SSIA's mature, the advice is coming thick and fast on what to spend them on (60K entries on Google). SSIA's are the Irish Government's wheeze to give people with some spare cash a bit more. It was supposed to help lower the rate of inflation by damping consumer spending - but luckily inflation went down cos the economy tanked a wee bit and the Irish Government seriously reeled in spending after the post-dot.com stock-market meltdown.

Naturally, only schmucks are going to wait until they actually mature. The voodoo-economists reckon they're already adding to the rate of inflation and not wanting to be appear like a laggard, I've splurged most of mine on a new garden (can't recommend them enough). There are many reasons why this makes sense, but I would be lying if I claimed I had considered any of them in advance. Plus now I don't have to paricipate in tedious SSIA conversations - score!