I've been really careful to ride my bike to work as much as I can and can say that I have seen a difference in my pocketbook. It feels good to not spend so much money on gas and even though the price has come down since the summer, I am glad to still not be spending the money. I picture myself riding past Ahmadinejad in his big black limo and thumbing my nose at him.

I've also been a little more careful with my money so far as how much we've been eating out. I have noticed over the last month, when I do go out to eat that the numbers of people eating out has gone down dramatically. This may be a bit of a bad sign for our local economy.

Are you planning on spending a significantly less amount of money over the holiday season? How much of this downturn do you think is just in our confidence in the economy vs. real economic hardtimes for each of us?