STOP me if you've heard this one.

A woman says to her friend: 'I made my husband a millionaire.'

The friend replies: 'What was he before?'

'A multi-millionaire,' she says.

Chances are, many of you wanted to stop me. And it's no wonder too, because this is a very popular joke, especially at weddings.

It's popular, I always thought, because of the sheer ridiculousness of its assertion - that a woman can single-handedly spend such a vast amount of money. Ha ha, very funny, whoever came up with the joke.

Well, at least that was what I always assumed.

I now realise I was a fool.

It turns out it was not a joke at all. I'm convinced it's a documented case study.

I have learnt that some women, if they put their minds to it, are able to spend an enormous amount of money in an incredibly short time. (I realise men are no angels in this department. I'll get to that later. Tradition dictates that I make fun of women first.)

Recently, I was given the opportunity to observe some friends of mine, many of whom have recently received their year-end bonus, shop. And I'm forced to deduce that some women can spend so much because they don't have the ability to discern how much stuff costs.

A woman is capable of looking at a few pieces of leather stitched together with somebody else's initials stuck on it and say to herself: 'Only $900 for this bag! What a bargain!'

A man looking at the same bag might say: 'This costs HOW MUCH? It looks like it costs $5 to make.'

The bag doesn't even do anything special that a normal $20 bag can't.

You can put stuff in it, just like a normal bag. You can take stuff out, like a normal bag. And when you get upset with me and swing it at my head, it leaves a nasty bruise just like a normal bag. Ouch.

But really, that's about it. You would think for that price, it would be waterproof, bulletproof and be hand-stitched by no less than a member of the British royal family.

And that's just bags. Don't even get me started on shoes.

To me, this observation that women have an inability to assess the value of things makes perfect logical sense.

Strangely enough, when I presented this remark casually to some of my expensive bag-owning friends, they reacted as if I had just said the most insulting thing in the whole world. One inquired if I was drunk, had been smoking crack and no longer desired the comforts of female companionship.

I realised we did not all agree on my recently formulated universal truth. So, being the open-minded new age guy that I am, I let them explain why they were willing to shell out upwards of $900 for a bag, into which they would put a $500 purse, containing about $12.50.

And at the same time, why they were willing to pay the sticker price on the bag with no questions asked, and yet would haggle for 30 minutes with a street vendor over a $5 scarf? I mean, being brand-sensitive only goes so far.

I found their responses very enlightening, if not mildly scary.

One said: 'It makes me feel good. Like how heels make me feel sexy.' (Whoa, I thought. Maybe you and your shoes should get a room.)

Another ventured that it's a status thing. It's a sign that you've made it.

'In that sense, women actually want to pay $900 for a bag. They don't want to pay less,' she said.

She went on to share examples of how some really rich women would spend thousands on a watch even when the watch face makes it difficult to see what time it is.

'It's a declaration that, if I can afford this watch, I don't need to know what time it is,' she said.

My friends also pointed out that even though a cretin like me cannot differentiate a $20 pasar malam bag from a $1,000 one, many, many women out there can. And they will say nasty things about you if you carry an imitation bag and do not immediately declare it as such. ('Hi! Long time no see. Oh, before we go any further, let me just say I bought this bag from Thailand. So how's the family...)

At this stage, I guess I should talk about men for a bit. Men are also able to spend copious amounts of money in a short time on way more stupid things they don't need - gambling, booze, women, stupidly fast cars, wars, etc.

But the difference is, when men make these purchases, they believe that there is nothing out there which achieves a similar function for a much cheaper price.

For example, a man going out to buy a Ferrari knows he cannot go and soup up his Hyundai to get equivalent performance.

Also, a man making a major purchase will spend some time thinking about it and researching it. Whereas a woman is capable of saying 'I'm going shopping today' and coming back with a few thousand bucks worth of stuff.

I'm sure many of you out there can think of exceptions. Even now, a few come to mind. But this column is not about those people.

This is about people who don't have a firm grip on their finances and are prone to impulse buys and just want to make fun of others to make themselves feel better, especially after they've just blown a few hundred bucks on computer games.

You know, people like me.