Consumers make changes _ but will they last?

"I had a paradigm shift," said Pizzini, a financial analyst. "I spent the money on a nice car. But to me, it's not worth it. I don't think I will go that route again."

Every economic downturn changes shoppers in some way. But this time, experts say the new behavior--fueled by higher gas and food prices, tightening credit and a slumping housing market--are the most dramatic and widespread that they have seen since the mid-1970s.

So retailers, marketers and investors are all trying to figure out which habits shoppers will keep and which will they drop when the economy recovers. Will the people who switched to store-brand ice cream go back to Breyers or Edy's? Will shoppers return to department stores or keep looking for labels at T.J. Maxx?

"We are looking at stuff that reminds me of the 1970s," said Patricia Edwards of investment manager Wentworth Hauser and Violich. "Americans have seen a huge amount of their balance sheet evaporate. The effects will be more lingering."

Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, says people's new spending patterns are forcing companies to change the kinds of products they sell and tweak their marketing to appeal to cost-conscious shoppers. She points to the last big recession of the early 1990s that helped trigger a fundamental shift in retailing as affluent shoppers started buying at discounters as well as upscale stores.

Radtke, 31, who holds down two jobs--at a veterinarian's office and at a flower shop--recently picked up shoe glue to fix the soles of her worn sneakers. She's buying store-label soups and crackers and bought a bike for her commute after not having ridden one for five years.

"We weren't big spenders, but now we are watching our money more," said Radtke, of Manitowoc, Wis., whose husband works in construction. "Even if I fell into a pile of money, I still wouldn't be spending a lot."

According to a survey released Thursday by market research company Nielsen Co., which tracks consumer habits, about two-thirds, or 63 percent, of consumers are cutting spending due to rising gas prices, up 18 percentage points from a year ago.

According to the study, which queried nearly 50,000 consumers by e-mail during the first week of June, 78 percent of them are combining shopping trips and 52 percent are eating out less often. Consumers are also cutting more coupons, doing more of their shopping at supercenters and buying less expensive brands, the survey found.