YOU Know You're In A Recession When, Volume 5: the con men trying to lure you into dodgy financial schemes put 'Job offer' in the subject line of the spam emails that clog up my inbox.

No, really; among the usual crop of Urgent! Unclaimed Lottery Prize Millions and Golden Opportunity! Reward For Sheltering African Government's Unspent Budget emails last week was one which tried to pull me into a scam by offering me a way out of unemployment.

I'm too neurotic even to click open one of those emails, so I don't know the details, but I bet it was a man who sent it. Those financial con artists are always male.

Money; it's a man thing. I mean, who does the finances in your house?

Incoming!

Whoa, sisters – let me grab my hard hat before I continue.

It's official; women don't do money. Well, semi-official; there's a new book written jointly by a psychologist and a financial adviser who say as much.

The pair are so concerned that women don't 'do' finance that they penned Sheconomics as a self-help guide (and hope to make some money for themselves in the process).

You got the punch line already because you're much smarter than I am; they're both women.

Psychologist Karen Pine and financial coach Simonne Gnessen say they know there are many women who are brilliant with money, but that, yes, research and years of experience have shown them that in general women don't plan their economic futures as well as men and are put off by the jargon of the financial world.

I'd like to say in their defence – and mine, too, so put down the knife, girl – that the authors don't reckon there's any difference in intelligence between women and men. They say there's a difference in behaviour between the sexes. Women's shopping is based on what's going on in their mind, not what's going on in their bank account.

Retail therapy is one example. Another is that women's emotional triggers can be exploited by slick salesmen eager to flog them products they don't need, so a single woman without children ends up buying life insurance, say the Sheconomics authors.

Now, I don't know how many bonkers financial products my wife bought before we got married, but I do know that some Sheconomics has the whiff of truth.

For example, I can tell how my wife's feeling from the number of bags she brings home on a Friday night.

If she's got lots, that's because she's happy and felt like rewarding herself, me and our children – or she's sad and felt like rewarding herself, me and our kids.

Alternatively, if all she brings home is her laptop and her handbag, either she's too depressed or too happy to shop.

Simple.

You should also know that although I am entrusted by my wife to do the family finances, she refused point-blank to have a joint bank account with me many years ago... because she believes I'm hopeless with money.

The mad thing is, she's right. I might be useless with dosh but I'm completely unemotional about it: and that's the real reason why I was given the responsibility of meticulously setting the household budget every month and then missing it by a clumsy mile.

I do all that with a smile on my face.

If my wife were in charge, she'd be on the penny every month – and I'd be on the Valium.

The Sheconomics girls are right about the link between female finances and behaviour.

I once heard her on the phone to the bank after they dumped a pile of charges on her for going overdrawn by a few quid for a couple of days.

I would have argued over whether the bank had followed the rules.

That's the same line the bloke in the call centre was taking. Bad idea.

Rules? My wife was making it clear she didn't care about the rules. IT JUST WASN'T FAIR!

I have no idea how the rest of the conversation went, because it got so scary that I left the room. When I came back in she was apoplectic with rage – and the bank had refunded the charges. Had I been present, I'm sure I would have witnessed a crime new to mankind: murder by shouting.

Before she calls in the divorce lawyers, let me say – quickly and truthfully – that she is not prone to tempers nor to irrational outbursts, except where it comes to money.

I'm told the same was true of the only woman to hold the office of First Lord of the Treasury. Would you fancy telling Margaret Thatcher that she'd got her sums wrong?

That leaves me with a dilemma. As 2009 threatens to strangle our family finances, we'd be quids-in if I left the job to my wife – but only at the price of what little hair is left on my head.

Women, and money numbers, eh? Go figure.