It's not hard to see how changing circumstances can affect consumer behavior. When people lose their jobs or suddenly fall ill and don't have enough of a nest egg or other resources to fall back on, they have little choice but to rethink priorities and adjust their spending habits.

But emotions and attitudes can also have a big impact on whether people choose to spend or save, and whether certain goods and services are categorized as necessities or luxuries. During the good times, for example, millions believed that a caffe latte from Starbucks was an essential start to the day. For many Americans nowadays, that is no longer the case.

In fact, a growing number of reports suggest that attitudes are undergoing a broad-based shift. Rather than worshiping at the altar of consumerism, more and more people are joining the cult of austerity. BusinessWeek's Steve Hamm explores the issue in more detail in "The New Age of Frugality."

Americans' charge-it culture is getting an overdue reality check. But will the new discipline stick?

On a shady lane in New Hope, Pa., a quiet revolution in American culture may be taking shape. Here, a family of four lives in a white, colonial-style house in a manner that once would have been considered All-American but more recently has been seen as just plain weird: They're frugal.

Meet Leah Ingram, Bill Behre, and daughters Jane, 13, and Annie, 11. They walk most everywhere, they rarely eat out, they sometimes buy clothing at consignment shops, and they turn the lights off when they leave a room.

Theirs is no hard-luck-in-a-recession story. The Ingram-Behre family is solidly middle-class, fully employed, and not especially threatened by the conniptions gripping Wall Street. Behre, 43, is a dean at the College of New Jersey, while Ingram, 42, is a successful freelance writer and etiquette expert. They have no credit card debt.

That's now. A little more than a year ago, the family was ensnared in America's consume-at-all-costs culture. During the days of soaring home prices and easy credit, they took out a $101,000 home-equity loan on a previous house and spent lavishly on a lifestyle upgrade—going on three cruises in two years and taking the kids on annual pilgrimages to Disney World (DIS). "After 9/11 it became patriotic to shop, and we became as patriotic as anybody," laments Behre, sitting in the dining room after a meal of chicken stir-fry—washed down with tap water.

Ingram and Behre are harbingers of a dawning Age of Frugality. People who overconsumed during the past decade are now rejecting extravagant lifestyles. They're spending less, and more wisely. Some are getting their finances in order. Others are fearful of losing their jobs, shocked by investment losses, or hunkering down amid the general uncertainty.

The penny-pinching is already showing up in the numbers; this quarter could mark the first fall in personal consumption in 17 years.