Everyone has heard of Individual Savings Accounts, or as they’re more commonly known: ISAs. Most people will know that there is an ISA limit of around £3,600 for cash ISAs, and many people will know that this limit is going to go up to £5,100 at the start of April (unless you’re over 50, in which case it will have gone up already).

ISAs are a great idea because they’re tax free, so any interest that you earn with an ISA you get to keep. If you’re a basic rate tax payer this means that if you have a savings account and an ISA account both offering the same rate of interest, you’ll earn 22% more in the ISA account because the interest is not taxed.

To make the most of your money, then, it’s always a good idea to make the most of your ISA and your ISA allowance. Many people, however, don’t realise that the cash element of an ISA is only half of your total allowance, with the other half being made up as a stocks and shares ISA. If they do, they may not realise that you don’t have to split them half and half, the regulations say that you can have up to half your allowance as cash, and the rest as stocks and shares. If you choose to have none of your allowance in cash, you can make the full amount up in stocks and shares.

So is this a good idea? After all, the stock market can be more than a little risky. The answer is yes, a low risk corporate bond account, for example, will return you around you 5% and shouldn’t drop far below that, that’s roughly eight times what you would earn in a savings account, and at least five times more than your average ISA. By having your full ISA allowance in stocks and shares, then, you can earn significantly more than if you have some of the balance in cash.

Of course, you shouldn’t just invest without knowing where the money is going. Companies like Legal & General have a wide range of stocks and shares ISA options and each will show you the amount of return that they have earned in previous years, so you can see how the investment performs, even in the most turbulent of financial times.

Stocks and shares ISAs are the best way of making a good return for your money without the direct speculation of the stock market. Investing through a bank means that someone else will look after your investment, making sure that it offers the best return possible whatever the financial climate, and you can always take your money out if you think things are getting too uncertain. Just make sure you do your research before investing and that your money goes to a bank with which you feel comfortable.