How top US celebrities spend

A survey published by Forbes.com has brought to light the buying and spending habits of top celebrities in the United States.

The survey was conducted by wealth-research firm Prince & Associates, of Redding, Connecticut, the United States, which recently polled 92 business managers representing 288 actors and musicians by asking them about their clients’ shopping plans for the holiday season.

It was found that pop star Britney Spears, who is going through troubled times after her divorce with Kevin Federline and the ongoing custody battle for their two children, spends an average of $16,000 a month on clothes alone. She spends about $4,758 on eating out, $10,250 on utility bills and $17,000 on automotive and other transportation costs.

What is more, Britney spends an average of $102,000 a month on “entertainment, gifts, and vacation,” according to court filings in her child custody battle.

The celebrities covered by the Prince survey plan to spend an average of $47,700 on wine and liquor alone. Most of them go for costly booze, like, for example, Chateau La Fleur Petrus, a red wine from the Bordeaux region of France – this wine costing over $17,000 a bottle, depending on the vintage.

As for entertaining guests, the average projected bill came to $52,300. Forbes.com says this amount is not surprising, considering the cost to throw a New Year’s Eve party “at a ski resort and pay the resort to make snow,” as one celebrity plans to do.

The survey revealed that about 48% of the celebrities plan to stay at a hotel or resort, at an average projected bill of around $89,300, and 17.4% plan to spend an average of $78,000 on villa or house rentals.

The celebrities also plan to spend an average of $74,400 on attire and accessories, $86,300 on wristwatches, and $114,500 on jewelry.

Martin Katz, owner and designer of Martin Katz Limited, a high-end jewelry store in Beverly Hills, told the survey that celebrities look for rings, necklaces, and earrings that are both beautiful and practical so they can be worn “on a regular basis.”

The other celebrity extravagances unearthed by the Prince survey are: over 80% of the celebrities plan to spend an average of $64,100 on spa services and trainers, and 13% expect to spend an average of $1.3 million to buy fine art.

The celebrities surveyed were at least 25 years old and had a minimum net worth of $10 million.

Hannah Grove, managing partner of Prince & Associates, was quoted by Forbes.com as saying: “Once someone has a net worth of more than $10 million, that’s the point over which people feel free to spend. There’s very little, barring major catastrophe, that would cause them to curtail their spending.”

Britney Spears spends an average of $241,020 a month, which is nearly five times the $48,398 that an average household in the United States spent in all of 2006 (as per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics). The average household in the European Union, where per-capita consumption was about 45% lower, spent even less.

Income level, according to Martin Katz, is a better indication of how much a celebrity will spend than net worth. This is a rule of thumb, he thinks, that applies to all purchases since “long-established celebrities may have much of their wealth tied up in less liquid assets, like real estate, which can constrain their ability to throw around cash.”