In my never-ending quest to improve my ways of wasting time, I partook in an internet quiz to find out what animal I would be in my next life.

Apparently, I’m coming back as a cat.

When I relayed this to Alex in another example of our riveting dinner-time conversation, he started laughing.

“You wouldn’t be a cat,” he said.

“You’d be a bower bird.

(Insert falsetto voice here.) <i/>

“Oh look, something sparkly – must pick it up. Oh look, something else sparkly – better get that. Oh sparkles – my life would end if I couldn’t add that to my nest.”

Needless to say, that was the end of the dinner conversation. And any other conversations for the rest of the night.

Because the one thing that Alex and I fight about is money.

Or, as he calls it, my needless attraction to sparkly things.

I can admit that I have what some could call a shopping issue.

It’s not an addiction. Really, it’s not. I could stop at anytime. I just don’t want to.

Alex lives in fear of sending me to the supermarket alone, because a simple errand for bread turns into an epic grocery adventure, full of “new products”, two-for-ones and free little gadgets with purchase.

Seriously – they’re free. It would be a crime to pass them by.

Even if I don’t really like Oolong tea, I certainly need the little tea strainer that comes with buying three packets of the stuff.

A gift with purchase is enough to send me into paroxysms of bliss – as my friend B witnessed after meeting up with me moments after I received my free GWT from Clinque recently. Seriously, you can never have too many samples of face wash.

Sadly, Alex disagrees.

Actually, that might be a little mildly put considering I came home from work recently to find him sitting in the dark with my credit card statement in his hands.

And it was literally in his hands – he had scrunched it so hard with his fists I think it became part of his body.

Now, my credit card is not in dire straits – there are plenty of small countries who have a larger GDP.

And I could probably pay it off fairly quickly – if I stopped spending.

I get that. I just don’t need to be reminded of it every two seconds.

When I was growing up there wasn’t a lot of money floating around – we were a family of five surviving on one income.

Anyways, when we did get something new, it was special. It made me feel special and I couldn’t wait to put it on, use it or take it out of its packaging and hold it.

Maybe on some level I’m trying to recapture that.

Who knows? All I know is that I get distracted by sparkly objects while my husband could live in the same T-shirt and shorts for a year and be as happy as a pig in mud.

He doesn’t seem to understand that if something is on sale, you are saving money.

Strangely, he takes the view that you aren’t saving money if you are spending money.

And so we are at an impasse.

And both of us are stubborn little creatures, so this could come down to the last person standing.

Which will probably be Alex, because I would have fainted from lack of nourishment because I spent all my money on pretty things.

But at least I’ll go down with a smile on my face!