Celebrity buying power (1)

Driven by extremes
Buying everyone in her studio audience a new car, as Oprah Winfrey did in 2004, was definitely a classy gesture.

But Oprah certainly has the money for it. With an annual income of $275 million, according to Forbes magazine, Oprah makes $523.21 every minute, even when she's asleep. So she earns enough to buy a new Pontiac G6, the kind of car she bought her audience members, in roughly 37 minutes.

Fill her up
For millions of Americans with SUVs, filling the tank with gasoline can cost more than $100.
That wouldn’t mean much to professional race car driver Danica Patrick, who earned about $5 million last year in prize money and endorsements, according to Forbes magazine. At that rate it takes her just 9.5 minutes to earn enough for a fill-up.

Bundles of joy
Being a parent is expensive, but celebrities like Angelina Jolie have an advantage over most regular Americans.

With earnings of about $14 million a year, even the most deluxe baby rearing gear is not out of reach. Jolie earns enough to buy a deluxe Bugaboo Bee stroller, which sells for about $530, in less than 20 minutes. So she can basically afford to have as many children as she likes.

Virtually affordable
Besides being a star on the golf course and in commercials, Tiger Woods now appears in a video game called Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09.

With an annual income of about $115 million, according to Forbes, Tiger could earn enough in a little more than a minute to buy a Wii system to play his new game on.

Earning enough to be a virtual Tiger would take longer for someone who has to deal with real tigers all day. Zoologists and wildlife biologists make about $58,480 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So it would take one of them more than 37 hours to earn enough to buy a Wii.

Music to her ears
Miley Cyrus, who plays the 14-year-old rock star Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel, can afford to indulge her own musical tastes.

The $25 million she made last year means that she earns enough to buy a Rock Candy electric guitar in about 7.3 minutes.

Other Hannahs in Montana will need to be more patient if they want their dreams of rock stardom to come true. The median household income in Montana was about $35,574 in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So it would take a typical Montana household about three and a half days to earn enough to buy the same pink guitar.