A few shillings in the tea caddy or a pound or two tucked under the mattress was the sum of most people's savings for many years.

People simply needed most of their money to get by from day to day while the odd windfall allowed them put aside a little cash for a rainy day.

But times have changed and as we have become wealthier, people have started to look not just for safer stashes for their cash but also for more productive ones.

There are two main reasons behind the growing interest in investment products in recent times - more people have money that is surplus to their needs and this has happened at a time when there have been fundamental changes in the investment climate which have made traditional deposit options less attractive, particularly falling interest rates.

While the rising economic tide may not have lifted all boats, the recent boom has certainly made many people richer.

In addition to the self-employed, many of whom have seen their businesses thrive, others have profited in a soaring property market. Houses purchased for a song 30 years ago have been sold after the death of their owners, raising hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of pounds for their descendants.

Meanwhile, the technology revolution has made millionaires of some while leaving many more comfortably off. The fortunes made by entrepreneurs like Mr Chris Horn of Iona Technologies, Esat's Mr Denis O'Brien and Mr Bill McCabe of CBT have been well documented. But others who joined such companies in the early days also benefited from the flotations while thousands of employees, both of Irish and US multinational high-tech firms, have become wealthier as a result of lucrative share option schemes.

The flotation of firms like Irish Permanent and Norwich Union provided those who cashed in stocks with windfall gains and others with their first taste of share ownership while even those with modest stock market investments have become a lot richer as share prices soared in recent years - £1,000 invested in Bank of Ireland at the end of 1992 would have been worth £6,558 five years later without taking dividend payments into consideration.

"Without doubt there is definitely more money around," says Mr Douglas Farrell, director of National Deposit Brokers, a firm of independent financial advisers.

"Our average client is 55 plus with £50,000 to £80,000 to invest but we are also getting a lot of queries from younger clients, people in the 30 to 40 age group who have £10,000 to £20,000 to invest. There is a lot of money out there."

As well as those with new money, a number of factors have come together over the last few years to encourage people to look away from traditional deposit options to more innovative financial products.

The near certainty that Ireland will form part of the single European currency zone from next year points to a prolonged period of low interest rates such as has prevailed in Germany for many years.

Irish depositors, who could traditionally expect reasonable returns, have seen these shrink while taxation on special savings accounts has steadily increased.

The prospect of lower interest rates combined with rising inflation means savers are not just facing lower returns. A far greater threat is the possibility that their lump sums will be eroded in value even as they sit in their deposit accounts.

"People are realising that cash won't provide them with the returns they need. The first sign of that was the significant volume of investment in property," says Mr Mark Cunningham, director of personal business at Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM).

The private investor accounted for the purchase of more than one third of all new houses in the Dublin market at one stage last year but the rush into "bricks and mortar" came to an abrupt halt following the publication of the Bacon Report earlier this year. No longer able to offset mortgage interest payments against rental income for tax purposes, the investor in the residential property market has had to face the task of finding a new home for his money.

Meanwhile, the stock market - the traditional source of the more sophisticated investors' wealth - has soared over the last three years. Despite the recent slump in global share prices, those who have invested over the long-term are sitting on huge returns which have enticed many to look at less risky market-linked products such as tracker bonds.

Finally, there is the pensions issue. Although Ireland is generally considered to be behind other western states in terms of the challenges faced in providing pensions for an ageing population, the warnings elsewhere that the State will no longer be able adequately to provide for the elderly will one day apply here as well.

While all workers will have to pay more attention to pension provision, this applies in particular to the self-employed who do not have the safety net of a company pension. In recent years, there have been signs that those who work for themselves are thinking ahead and many have tended to purchase property to provide for them in their retirement.

"Ireland has a much greater property investment culture than anywhere else in the world, but what you have to achieve in terms of looking at balanced investments is not to be overly exposed to one sector or to one market," says Mr Cunningham. "With just property, you are exposed only to that market and just to Ireland."

Investment advisers say this message is increasingly filtering through and investors with an eye on their retirement are considering equities and other investment products to provide a broader spread in their investment portfolios.

Nor are they alone as savers and those with lump sums on deposit also seek to get their money to work harder for them.