My wife keeps saying we should get round to making wills. I don't know what sinister plot she's hatching, but I nod and go back to studying form in the Racing Post (which she hides under a carefully-placed Investors' Weekly).

I'm hopeless with planning ahead, especially money matters. To me, forward planning is deciding what shirt to wear today. I just cannot, after a hard day slaving over a hot keyboard, get my head round investments, savings plans, ISAs, PEPs, pensions, you name it. The only money-laundering I've ever done is leave a fiver in my jeans pocket when they went into the washing machine.

It may be lethargy, apathy, stupidity, or simply depression at the thought that after all these years working hard, I am not well off.

So this I'll-do-it-tomorrow attitude has left me with a mortgage 'til I'm 67 and six-figure savings (if you insert a full stop and count the last two figures as pence).

The endowments I was sold by a snake-oil salesman in the early 80s are falling short, and every time I try to claim they were mis-sold to me, the financial institutions bamboozle me with all sorts of forms and demands.

How can I remember how much I was earning in 1981? I can't remember what was in last month's pay packet. I don't recall this morning's conversation with the milkman, let alone what false promises of untold riches my greasy endowment salesman made 27 years ago.

Mrs Hearld is different. She's a hoarder of every bank statement, tax, gas and electricity bill since she was working as a gatekeeper at the Garden of Eden (she got the sack for letting women in to taste the apples). So this organised, efficient little creature has had a payback on under-performing endowments.

Meanwhile, I don't know the price of a pint of beer (despite how many I buy), or of a pint of milk, or whether a loaf is over a pound or under. I don't know what council tax band our house is in, or what we pay per month for gas, power or water. It's just detail I leave to the standing orders.

Trouble is, this head-in-the-sand attitude leaves your backside sticking up in the air to be kicked by every shady character who wants to rip off your money.

I'm all for a bargain, but I cannot face bargain hunting. How can these people face the fury of the Mongol hordes to save a few quid in the January sales? Or camp out overnight to get a half-price food mixer? I can bag what I think is a bargain this week, and find next week it has come down by sixty quid. How infuriating is that?

When we are planning work on the house we promise to be sensible and get lots of quotes. We go through the Yellow Pages, line up all these companies, then I promptly accept the first quote because I have not got the mental energy or physical stamina to go through it all again.

While I'm struggling with the electronic complexity of the TV handset that is more like an airline pilot's cockpit than a telly programme selector, Mrs H will be reading out the financial Agony Aunt columns of a heavy national paper. "I am 32 and have £750,000 to invest. Should I put it into equities or antiquities so that I can manage when I retire at 40?" Great, galloping gutrot. Who are these people?

Where do they get that sort of money? When my poor parents died I inherited £300. Am I bitter? No. They tried to enjoy their last years.

If I won £10 million on the lottery, I would just leave it on the kitchen table and promise to invest it wisely.

A year later it would still be there, depleting a little as I pass and pick up pocket money for a day at the office (oh, and as my wife and daughter pass on their way to the shops, hairdresser, manicurist, pedicurist, facial specialist, holiday shop).

Is it just me, or are there others out there just too busy scratching a living to worry about money?

Updated: 09:50 Tuesday, May 23, 2006