With the ISA allowance increased from £7,200 to £10,200 today for people who are at least 50 by the end of this tax year, many people are thinking about where to best invest their ISA top-up payments.

Use these top tips to start planning your own ISA investment strategy.

1 – Before you invest in an ISA make sure that you have a plan for paying off any debt that you may have particularly short term debt such as credit cards, storecards and overdrafts. These debts are likely to cost you more than the rewards you might receive from investing through an ISA.

2 – It makes sense to have an emergency fund before you start to actively invest for the future. A good rule of thumb is to have say six months worth of bills available in your emergency fund just in case.

3 – You can choose to invest into a cash ISA and an equity ISA, or have a combination of the two. From 6th October 2009 it is possible for those aged over 50 to invest £10,200 per tax year in an ISA. Up to £5,100 of this can be in cash with any remaining balance in an equity ISA. Alternatively you can invest the full £10,200 in an equity ISA. For those aged under 50 these new higher limits don’t start until 6th April 2010. Until then the limit is £7,200 of which up to £3,600 can be in a cash ISA.

4 – There are so many equity ISAs to choose from and probably the best way to buy one is through a fund supermarket. This means that you do not have the whole of your ISA contribution invested through one fund manager but can choose from a suitable range of funds.

5 – You should choose funds that reflect your attitude towards and appetite for risk. With over 3,000 investment funds to choose from you won’t be surprised to learn that there is a great range of risk and reward from these funds. You need to establish how much of your ISA contributions might be invested in cash, fixed interest securities, property and shares.

6 – Choose a range of funds from top performing fund management groups but do not be seduced solely by past performance. Some of last year’s best performing funds may not turn out to be very good this year. Make sure that you read the fund fact sheet that the fund management groups produce for each of the funds. This will tell you what the objective of the fund is and you can then determine whether it is suitable for your investment goals.

7 – Avoid ISA products that have high initial charges as these will eat into your prospective investment returns. Each ISA will have annual management charges depending upon the investment funds that you have selected. For ‘passive’ (sometimes called ‘tracker’) funds the typical annual management charge will be 0.5% or less. For ‘active’ managed funds the annual management charge is more likely to be in the order of 1%-1.5%. You pay more for the prospect of better performance although that is of course not guaranteed.

8 – You should review your ISA investments at least on a yearly basis. It is generally the case that investor’s goals and objectives change over time and if you don’t review you may discover that you are taking more (or indeed less) risk than you have to.

9 – Make sure that you can obtain valuations of your ISA online anytime you want to rather than having to make a phone call for valuations or indeed having to wait until they are issued to you by the ISA provider (typically two statements per year).

10 – If you want to buy your ISA without advice that is easy enough to do but if you do need to take advice make sure that you use the services of a suitably qualified and experienced independent financial adviser.

Martin Bamford is site editor of BrilliantWithMoney and a Chartered Financial Planner at Informed Choice.

Pensions remain an important retirement planning tool, offering valuable tax relief on contributions and a tax efficient environment in which your money can grow. But they can sometimes be difficult to understand.

Use these top tips to start planning your own retirement strategy and to make sure you understand how pensions work before you get started.

1 – Before you start planning for retirement, make sure that you have a good plan to repay any debt that you have. Saving for the long-term is obviously important but short term debt (credit cards, overdrafts, storecards, etc can get you into real financial difficulty if you do not keep up the payments due on them.

2 – Find out if your employer (if you have one) has a pension plan to which they will contribute. Very often you will also have to make a contribution to join an employer sponsored pension plan but it makes real sense to benefit from any payment available from your employer.

3 – Think about the alternatives to a formal pension plan. You may for example need to access the money that you are saving ahead of your anticipated retirement age. If that is likely to be the case then a savings and investment plan such as an Individual Savings Account (ISA) maybe more suitable for you.

4 – Make sure that you choose a pension plan with low management charges so that your contributions can work hard for you. Avoid any plans that have high set up costs or exit penalties if you decide to transfer your pension fund elsewhere or retire early.

5 – You will want to have a pension plan that offers a wide choice of investment funds so that you can invest your pension contributions in a suitable manner. Remember that most pension investment funds can go down as well as up in value but some will be more suitable than others for you (take a look at some of the SIPP portfolio ideas that we have created for BrilliantWithMoney SIPP customers)

6 – Some people have decided not to save for retirement by using a pension plan because they have lost confidence in such plans. They think their money would be better off in a cash account earning interest. Of course there is no reason at all why your pension plan should not be invested in cash earning interest; so that you get all the tax benefits but remain in cash.

7 – Your chosen pension plan should allow you to access valuations online any time that you want. Many old fashioned pension plans are paper based and to know what your plan is worth you have to phone or write to the plan provider. Choose a plan that safely allows you to do this online just like you might do with your bank account.

8 – If you decide to change your pension plan investment fund choice you should also be able to do this online. Your plan provider should also be able to give you a lot of understandable information about the investment funds that are available.

9 – Your pension plan should be with a financially strong organisation so that you can rest assured that your pension plan is safe and properly managed.

10 – There is no reason why you should not be able to establish and run your pension plan without taking advice but if you are not confident to do this for yourself then take advice from an independent and properly qualified and experienced adviser.

The BrilliantWithMoney SIPP is low-cost, entirely transparent, offers a complete range of collective investment funds and competitive interest rates on cash; but is entirely web-based.

There is no set-up charge and no charge for contributions or transfers.  It offers access to more than 3,000 funds from over 230 fund managers, many with nil initial fund charges and discounted annual management charges.

Find out more and apply online at brilliantwithmoney.co.uk/sipp

Martin Bamford is site editor of BrilliantWithMoney and a Chartered Financial Planner at Informed Choice.