Mariah needs an £8m ring and two yachts... We’ve all been there!

ITHINK we are safe in saying that singer Mariah Carey – apparently dumped for ‘excessive spending’ by her boyf, the Ozzie rich kid James Packer – doesn’t do low maintenance. Unlike Her Majesty, who goes about her palaces turning off lights and warms herself by a two-bar electric fire, La Carey is unacquainted with thrift. I can’t see her trilling, ‘What, this old thing?’ when her other half frowns suspiciously, ‘Is that new?’ – as happens round ours when I buy a new outfit.

Her brand is to be the definition of the demanding diva.

If she turns on the Christmas lights at Westfield, Ms Carey needs 20 fluffy kittens, 80 security guards and 100 white doves. And James Packer, at first, seemed happy to both match and raise her.

Her engagement ring (she complained the stone was so large she had difficulty ‘lifting her hand’) cost him £8 million – and then romance went on the rocks.

To my mind, it was no coincidence that this happened after Mariah gave a TV interview during a recent deluxe holiday a deux in Greece saying it was ‘essential to have his and hers yachts – his and hers everything!’

They have not seen each other since, a spokesman confirmed.

I find this rather reassuring, in a perverse way.

For what this tells us is, even if you have a special person just to dispose of used chewing gum, most couples basically face much the same conflicts – and one of the biggest power struggles in any partnership is over money.

I’m the one who shops at Waitrose, I buy organic, and I once spent £3.70 (I think a world record) on a small takeaway coffee.

I like top-of-the-range German appliances on the grounds that they don’t break straightaway, and my mantra is: ‘You get what you pay for.’ My husband hasn’t got a mean bone in his body, but won’t go to M&S and Waitrose (‘too expensive’) and only buys the ‘Basics’ and ‘Essentials’ ranges even when I request him not to.

He is congenitally incapable of spending a penny more than he has to on groceries and, when a large section of our sitting room came down at the weekend, and I started discussing redecoration, he just stuck all the wallpaper back up with duct tape.

Contrast my husband’s puritan streak with the vulgar conspicuous consumption of London’s big spenders.

One financier was in a business meeting in New York and his mobile rang. It was his bank back in London, saying that they were worried his wife’ s credit card had been stolen. Purchases totalling more than £20,000 had been made in a couple of hours in Knightsbridge.

The financier listened, then said, shortly, ‘No, that sounds about right for a Tuesday morning,’ hung up and continued his meeting.

ANOTHER neighbour regaled a ‘kitchen supper’ in London about how his wife had decided to rip out their perfectly nice country-style kitchen and replace it with a minimal stainless steel one. ‘I told her she had an unlimited budget,’ he boasted, ‘and she still exceeded it!’

These couples are happily on the same page when it comes to their pocketbooks. Packer and Carey, however, seem to have uncoupled over spending (their people deny it, of course) despite having the combined purchasing power of several small African countries.

Whatever. Ignore the red-carpet riders and diamonds as big as the Ritz, and it turns out the rich aren’t so different from you and me (apart from having a lot more money) in one way, anyway: cash can still be a major flashpoint even for them.

Meanwhile, James Packer no longer has to solve a problem like Mariah – and she gets to keep the ring.