Noe Valley resident Evan Graner, 31, isn’t going out on the town as often as he used to, using the money he saves to pay down debt.

Regnaldo Woods, 20, better known as YQ, has stopped buying fast food so he can help his mother with mortgage payments on their Daly City home.

Bella Comelo of San Leandro was never a big spender, but she used to fork out about $400 to $500 each year for clothes. Now she’s stopped buying apparel altogether, fearful of what a weakening economy might do to family finances.

“I know the recession is coming. I’m more cautious than before,” said Comelo, 69.

From Morgan Hill to Moraga, from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz, Bay Area residents are tightening their belts.

You might say it’s a move from shop till you drop to dropping the shopping. Dire reports of an economy on a downward spiral are prompting people from many walks of life to rethink spending plans, cut back on extravagances and set aside what they can in anticipation of harder times.

It’s all part of a nationwide consumer retrenchment that’s not only an effect of a listless economy, but also a major contributor to that weakness. The gathering pullback by consumers threatens to knock out the most important prop holding up the economy, across the region and across the nation.

Purchases of goods and services by ordinary Americans - everything from haircuts and soda to SUVs and HDTVs - represent roughly two-thirds of the nation’s economic activity. The question now is how far consumers will pare their spending and how much damage that might do to an economy already on its knees.

Forecasters tell us to keep an eye on the job market and watch how much people are earning. The evidence there is disquieting. Rising unemployment and scant wage gains are cutting into the disposable cash of ordinary Americans.

“That bodes poorly for consumers,” said John Lonski, chief economist with the credit rating firm Moody’s Investors Service.

Combine a cash squeeze with the fear factor and you have a recipe for a consumer slowdown.

The latest numbers show consumer spending growth near a standstill. Nationwide, outlays for personal consumption rose just 0.2 percent in December from the month before, the Commerce Department reported recently.

Retail sales this holiday season posted their weakest gains since the beginning of the decade. And chain store sales last month were up only 0.5 percent from the comparable period the year before, the weakest January since records were first kept in 1970, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

The newfound hesitation to spend represents an economic sea change. Until recently, Americans showed themselves to be redoubtable shoppers, reaching for their credit cards through thick or thin - even after the trauma of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“Consumers have historically surprised us with their willingness to spend no matter what,” said Scott Hoyt, an analyst with the research firm Moody’s Economy.com. “Every time we try to write them off, they find some way to finance their spending and keep going.”

This time seems to be different. The toxic combination of a housing market crash, falling stock prices, rising costs for goods and services, a feeble dollar and climbing unemployment might just be knocking the American consumer for a loop.

The Bay Area, where housing prices and other living costs are in the stratosphere, has long been tough on the wallet. Now, with the jobless rate up, home prices in free fall and business activity slowing, more and more people find themselves on the edge.

“The price of milk has gone up tremendously … the price of milk, the price of gasoline,” complained Larry West, 58, an out-of-work technology contractor from Walnut Creek. “That’s what’s killing me. I look at my nest egg and think I can’t survive.”

To be sure, plenty of people in the affluent Bay Area have the means and the will to keep spending.

Norman Collier, 60, an engineer for a military contractor, lives with his wife in South San Jose. He describes himself as cost conscious, buying groceries and gas at Costco or Wal-Mart. He doesn’t have expensive hobbies. For him and his wife, gardening is their biggest indulgence. “We’re very big into tomatoes,” he said.

But they didn’t scrimp this holiday season. They bought clothes and a computer screen for their 24-year-old son and a phone for their 26-year-old daughter.

“We probably spent as much or more than we usually do,” he reported.

To get a sense of the mood at the mall, The Chronicle interviewed a range of area residents about their views on the economy and their shopping habits.

We found widespread worry. People are feeling the pinch directly as the values of their homes and investments fall, and the cost of living goes up. Some have lost jobs or seen their incomes fall. Many say they are cutting back, especially on little luxuries such as restaurant meals.

During a recent weekday afternoon at Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo, of four consumers stopped at random only one was actually buying something - and that was a photograph of his daughter. Others were returning merchandise or, in one case, picking up a paycheck.

But not everyone is in retreat. For every Larry West, we found a Norman Collier. Even in a downturn, the bottom isn’t likely to fall out of the regional economy. Consumers are simply too diverse for neat generalizations. Perhaps the best thing is just to listen to what a few of them have to say. Larry West, 58, Walnut Creek

If there’s anything that will throw spending into reverse, it’s losing your job. That’s what happened to Larry West.

For most of the last decade, West has worked steadily as a contract information technology manager, overseeing large projects. But in November, his job with a major telecommunications company ended. He’s not been able to line up anything since, despite sending out an average of five inquiries a week.

“I have some money in the bank,” he explained. “As a contractor, you always try to keep a reserve. My reserve is not as big as it should have been.”

West, who lives by himself in a condo, said he’s slashed dramatically what he spends on dining and entertainment. He and his girlfriend no longer take weekend trips to places like the Wine Country. He said he’s shocked by how expensive everyday items such as food and gasoline have become.

“I’ve cut down a lot on the quality of the groceries I buy,” he noted. “I’m a cheese lover, but I skip cheese now when I go to the grocery store.”

Except during the tech crash at the beginning of the decade, when one project ended, West almost always was able to find something else quickly. He’s surprised at how little response his applications have gotten. Now he’s considering looking in other places, such as Los Angeles and Florida.

“I’m a people person and I like working with groups,” he said. “What I’m really good at is talking on the phone.” Bella Comelo, 69, San Leandro

By all rights, Bella Comelo shouldn’t be worrying about money. She and husband Ernest have paid off their ranch-style house. Social Security, her husband’s pension from his job with Alameda County and Comelo’s sick leave pay from her job with the Oakland Unified School District provide an adequate income. They have plenty of money set aside.

All the same, she’s nervous. One friend lost a job at a bank, another at a mortgage company. Falling stock prices spooked her. Both she and her husband have health problems, which each month cost hundreds of dollars above what they get from Medicare and insurance. The price of their staple diet of fish and vegetables has gone up. So have bus fares.

What’s more, she said, “In my neighborhood, houses were not selling. That was an indication that hard times were coming.”

Always frugal, Comelo has trimmed spending even further. She didn’t give holiday presents to friends this year and she’s stopped shopping for clothes.

“I’m in a good situation,” Comelo said. “But I don’t know how long this recession will last. We don’t want to take chances, dip into savings.”

Comelo says her attitude reflects her upbringing. She migrated to the United States from India about 25 years ago.

“We are naturally the saving type,” she explained. “We come from a place where there was no Social Security. We have to take care of ourselves.” Bill Hillebrand, 51, Sunnyvale

Bill Hillebrand had a grand vision when he planned the remodeling job on his house. Then the economy started softening and Hillebrand began to worry about how his landscaping business might be affected. Now “grand” is no longer the operative word for the project.

He and wife Sharon, a Pilates instructor, plan to add 600 square feet to their tract home, which they share with their 9-year-old twins. They’re putting in a family room, two bathrooms and a master closet, while renovating the kitchen. Originally they budgeted about $60,000, a price Hillebrand thought was realistic because of his contractor connections. They’ve since scaled back to about $35,000, and will suspend work when money runs out.

“We’ve decided to be extremely careful,” Hillebrand said. “We will do a lot of the work ourselves. Instead of buying designer fixtures, we’ll go to Home Depot.”

Hillebrand had planned to take out a loan to finance the project. But he’s decided to stick with savings, cash flow and a tax refund.

“As you go into what looks like a recession - or at least a downturn - the last thing you want to do is take on more debt,” he said.

So far, Hillebrand’s business hasn’t felt much effect from a slowing economy. But some of his vendors tell him they’re getting fewer calls. One of them, looking for a little extra cash, even asked if he wanted to rent a truck the vendor couldn’t use.

As for his customers, Hillebrand is concerned about recession psychology.

“So many of these decisions are emotional,” he said. “They definitely have the money. But if they’re not feeling right about the world, why should they spend it?” Evan Graner, 31, San Francisco

There are plenty of people like Evan Graner in the Bay Area - young, single, with good-paying jobs and no mortgages to carry. It’s easy to get sucked into a lifestyle filled with restaurant meals, weekend trips, nice vacations, concerts, movies and plays, all paid for with plastic.

But as the economy stalled, Graner got religion. Instead of spending so much, he started working hard to pay off his $25,000 in credit card debt. And when he gets his anti-recession tax rebate, it’s going to his student loan.

Graner used to lay out $7 to $12 every workday for lunch. Now he brings his own meals. He’s going to movies and the theater about half as often as he once did. He told his friends no on a Hawaii trip this year. And he’s boosted the amount budgeted to pay his card debt to $1,100 from $700.

“Whipping out the credit card is something I’m doing a lot less,” said Graner, who works as a brand manager for a large financial services company. “I’m not doing as many things with my friends on weekends because there isn’t cash on hand.”

The catalyst for this latter-day thrift was the plunge of the housing and stock markets.

“Part of it is that I’m getting older and I’m getting more responsible,” Graner explained. “But the other thing is that when things like this happen in the marketplace, you’re forced to look at your own situation. I don’t think I would have changed if things hadn’t taken the downturn they did.”

Still, Graner stresses, he has not taken a vow of poverty.

“I’m still going skiing at Tahoe on the weekends,” he said. “I’ve not given up the skiing because I paid for it already.” Art and Lindsay Okamoto, 40 and 35, Redwood Shores

For Art and Lindsay Okamoto, it’s business as usual. But then the two aren’t high rollers anyway.

“I don’t think that the downturn has affected our spending,” Art Okamoto said. “But we’re typically cautious.”

He is a product manager for a software company. His wife works for a children’s health foundation. Their daughter Elin celebrated her first birthday at the end of January. The Okamotos took the day off to spend time with her and get her portrait taken.

“We definitely spend within our means. We’ve never been very extravagant,” Lindsay Okamoto said.

The couple say they set aside as much as they can to fund retirement accounts. Major outlays include payments on the condo they bought four years ago and a car. Other than that, “it’s just day-to-day items,” Art Okamoto said. “We keep an eye on things.”

He is philosophical about what’s happening with housing and stocks.

“We bought our place. If it goes down, that’s what’s happened,” Art Okamoto said.

As for his investments, he added, “I’m diversified enough. I’m not worried.” ‘YQ’ Woods, 20, Daly City

For Regnaldo Lequan “YQ” Woods, it all came into focus when a woman his mother knows lost her home a month or so ago.

“She got kicked out,” he said. “It just opened our eyes. It’s really happening. People can lose their house.”

His mother, who works for AT&T, now buys less expensive groceries and has turned down the heat in the Daly City house where they live with Woods’ 13-year-old sister.

“My mother laid down the law,” he said. “She’s very nervous.”

Woods has a budding hip-hop career, including a performance scheduled at Cogswell College in Sunnyvale next month. He’s a student at College of San Mateo and works at the Disney Store in Hillsdale Shopping Center.

Lately, he’s been economizing so he can help his mother with the mortgage bill. A few hundred dollars usually go each month to house payments.

“I help out as much as possible,” he said. “Whenever something is needed, I come through.”

The losers in all this are Quiznos and Burger King, where Woods used to drop his lunch money.

“Those two killed me,” he said. “Now I’m usually packing a lunch from home.”

A worried survey

Are consumers cutting back because of recession fears? San Francisco personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi recently surveyed his readers to get the answer. Here’s what he found:*

– 41 percent of women said they were worried about a recession compared with 26 percent of men.

– 57 percent of people over 45 were worried versus 24 percent under 30.

– Among worriers, 85 percent said they’ve been eating out less, 75 percent have cut back on recreational activities and 36 percent are driving less.

To read the survey results, go to links.sfgate.com/ZCJW.

* Based on a survey of 1,072 blog readers conducted Jan. 28-30.

Source: «www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com»

E-mail Sam Zuckerman at szuckerman@sfchronicle.com.

February 3, 2008 — America’s love affair with gambling is suffocating the casino business.

As more and more states pass laws allowing slot machines and other types of gambling within their borders, existing gambling locations are feeling the pain in the form of reduced traffic or lower profits as they ratchet down their win percentage to attract more visitors.

As a result, casino company shares are coming under pressure.

Consider this:

* For the first time in its 30-year life as a casino town, Atlantic City last year reported a decline in revenue. It blamed newly-installed slot machines at Pennsylvania race tracks for siphoning off crowds.

* For the 11 months ended Nov. 30, casino revenue in Nevada grew by an anemic 1.8 percent, the slowest growth since 2001. In November, gambling revenue was off nearly 14 percent from the year-ago period.

* At Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, Connecticut’s two major casinos, slot machine revenue dropped 17 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively, in December from 12 months earlier. Bonds floated by the casinos have fallen recently in part of concern that moves by Massachusetts to install slot machines at its nearby racetracks will cut traffic next year.

* Casinos in Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi and Iowa were recently downgraded by Nicholas Danna, the gaming analyst at Sterne Agee, on concerns over lower growth rates due to increased competition.

Higher gasoline prices are also contributing to the malaise in the gaming industry. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange SIG Gaming Index, reflecting the tumbling dice and slot machine business, hit a 52-week low on Jan. 17 - but has rebounded in recent days.

One piece of collateral damage associated with the drop-off in gambling revenue is that counties and states, some already grappling with lower takes from the subprime mortgage fall-out, will have to scramble to make up the shortfall in gambling-related tax revenue.

For gamblers, though, the timing is perfect. To entice more traffic, many casinos are increasing the rate of payouts on their slot machines.

LONDON: The anti-poverty movement has its white wristbands. The anti-AIDS campaign has its red ribbons. Is the effort to curb obesity about to get its own instantly recognizable symbol?

The British government last month outlined a new strategy, including a \75 million, three-year advertising campaign, to try to get Britons to slim down. Almost two-thirds of adults and about a third of children in Britain are overweight or obese, health officials say.

Some people in the advertising industry are calling for the campaign to resemble the recent anti-poverty initiative that went under the name “ONE” in the United States and “Make Poverty History” in other countries. Millions of people bought white wristbands to signal their commitment to the movement. To be effective, advertising executives say, the anti-obesity initiative needs to be similarly broad-based.

“Were saying, if you just run some advertising and then forget about it, its going to have zero effect,” said Hamish Pringle, director general of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, which represents British advertising agencies. “If were seeing obesity as a societal problem, it could be a decade before it shows results.”

Several years ago, amid rising concern about obesity and alarm in the ad industry about a possible backlash over the marketing of unhealthy food, agencies based in London presented ideas to the government for an anti-obesity logo, along the lines of the triangular symbol that is used internationally on recyclable materials.

Rather than referring directly to food or exercise, the proposed symbols apparently were intended to convey a message of personal responsibility for diets. They could have been applied to food packaging, Web sites to make the message resonate with children.

The idea stalled, advertising executives say, because of disagreements over how the program should be run.

The government, for instance, wanted to be able to exclude junk food brands from using the logo, advertising executives say. The industry wanted to leave that decision to marketers. The logo would have appeared alongside a separate set of nutritional labels that are being phased in on British food packaging.

Though the government published a 56-page report on the overall anti-obesity strategy, including plans to promote bicycle-riding and to require cooking lessons in schools, it provided few details on what kind of advertising it envisioned.

The plan calls for an “evidence-based marketing program which will inform, support and empower parents in making changes to their childrens diet and levels of physical activity.”

Like most public-sector advertising in Britain, the obesity campaign will be run through the Central Office of Information, a government department that coordinates ad agency assignments. While the direction of the campaign remains unclear, representatives of the advertising industry said they considered themselves fortunate to be considered part of the solution to obesity.

“Its using the positive power of advertising, which seems to be a bit of a sea change in how the government sees advertising,” said Jonathan Collett, a spokesman for the Advertising Association in London, a trade group for the advertising and marketing industries.

Among the steps the government had been considering was a proposal by some health organizations to ban all television advertising of foods high in fat, sugar or salt before 9 p.m.

British regulators last year had already banned ads for unhealthy foods from appearing during television programs aimed at children. The move was seen as one of the strictest measures anywhere to restrict such advertising. It caused fears in the food industry that calls for ad bans might spread to other European countries.

Meanwhile some anti-obesity groups in Britain say not enough is being done. “Its illogical to spend taxpayer money on anti-junk-food advertising while allowing significantly higher spending on contradicting that message,” Richard Watts, coordinator of the Childrens Food Campaign.