Ground Floor: Bridget Jones might have been hopeless with men, money and her weight but she's bankrolling the publishing and film industries again this month with the release of the Edge of Reason movie sequel.

I have to admit that I like the Bridget character - since all women are bundles of insecurities about some parts of their lives, her constant attempts to be more than the sum of all her parts inevitably touches a chord. And there's something vulnerable and helpless about her that makes even her silliest actions seem cute rather than dumb.

Unfortunately it seems to be perennially fashionable to be dumb when it comes to money, particularly if you're a woman. We seem to be happy to announce that we're in permanent financial chaos and it's just not cool to say that you've paid off your credit card or that you don't blow your entire salary on hair extensions and Jimmy Choos every month.

Financial competence has always had a boring image. And nobody wants to be boring.

Over the last few weeks there's been a regular television advertisement for Norwich Union in which a woman in her forties tells us that inside she's 17 and that if you want to talk about financial "thingys" you should talk to her Dad.

She's obviously meant to tap in to the free spirit within our souls but she comes across as incredibly silly. It's her Dad I feel sorry for - obviously now in his seventies, hoping to be enjoying his retirement, and still having to worry about his daughter's finances!

I don't know whether the investment company is making its pitch to women in general or to our potentially long-suffering Dads but either way it's reinforcing the message that women and finance don't mix.

Of course, as a female, the woman in the ad is already at a disadvantage in the world of finance. I've written before about the gender pay gap and the fact that, on average in this country, women earn 15 per cent less than a man for doing exactly the same work.

Many of us feel frustrated in that knowledge and helpless to know what to do about it, since facing up to it is difficult and means confrontation in the workplace.

While I think that there is a danger that we are becoming a wealth-obsessed nation (if I read any more about the proliferation of private jets and hot tubs in Irish households I will feel almost Bridget Jones-ish in my inadequacy), it's still important to have some kind of grip on your finances and women need to lose the notion that there's something cute about being dumb when it comes to their personal wealth.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only woman who thinks like this because this month an Irish organisation named Women of Wealth - Wealth of Women or, more snappily, WoW (www.womenofwealth.com) has launched its first publication - The Woman's Way to Wealth: Stepping-stones.

To coincide with the launch they are arranging a series of Wealth Seminars for women (info@wealthofwomen.com).

According to WoW, they are dedicated to promoting the financial, social, psychological and spiritual wealth of women. If they can do all that, of course, they can obviously run the world because we will all be better people!

Nevertheless, WoW does make some interesting points about women and wealth.

Leaving aside the gender pay differential, it points out that if a woman is at home taking care of her ageing parents, this work is not counted in the GDP/GNP figures but if she sends her parents to a nursing home, they, and their caretaker, would become a job-creating asset.

And if two full-time homemakers cross the street and work for each other's husbands, they are entitled to an eight-hour day, 40-hour week for their efforts, while by staying at home, they're entitled to nothing. It brings a whole new perspective to the wife swap idea.

Perhaps, instead of staying at home and looking after their own families, women should swap houses every day and look after the people next door.

More shocking, however, is the revelation that only 3 per cent of women after a lifetime of work (paid or unpaid) find that they are able to support themselves without help from government or family.

This is very disturbing. Nobody really wants to think that they will go through their working life unable to support themselves at the end of it. Everyone wants a degree of financial independence.

Most of the women I know who work full time in the home still have separate bank accounts.

All women, regardless of their employment situation, like to be able to take control of our own lives and financial independence is very important in building up self-esteem.

But it's not just financial independence; it's the concept of not being scared of money and not feeling that being competent to look after your own affairs somehow catapults you out of the Jimmy Choo and Cosmopolitan generation and into Scholls and Horlicks.

Very few of us want to stay on the gainfully employed treadmill forever. I've written before about high-flying women who give it all up because they want to have a different sort of life. Not everyone wants a crack at the corner office and a seat at the boardroom table.

And women aren't the only ones who eventually tire of the endless merry-go-round of corporate living. But you have to have a plan for the day that you opt out and, at the moment, men have a better handle on retirement prospects.

Cinderella has a lot to answer for. The fairy tale, told to so many of us at an impressionable age, has left deep scars in many women's psyches. We're led to believe that someone else will look after us.

But the truth is that there are no Price Charmings out there. And, in the end, most of us would prefer to pay for our Jimmy Choos ourselves.