"The consumer will go through this process of evaluating what stuff they bring into their life to make sure it brings meaning into their life," Blinkoff said. "They'll be less superfluous."
The economy has taught Chung Yi that he can live comfortably on a salary of less than six figures.
He left high-paying jobs and started a green contracting and design company in Baltimore. With a smaller salary, Yi, 27, has cut back on spending. He spends a quarter of what he once did on clothes and buys furniture at the Restoration Hardware outlet, rather than the company's full-price store. He's even gone straight to the manufacturer for some items.
Yi and his girlfriend have also decided to eat at less expensive restaurants and have discovered neighborhood dining establishments around the city.
Yi has come to appreciate the more frugal lifestyle.
"It's going to have to be a new way of life," he said. "We can still live on a smaller salary and have a great lifestyle, and we can put more money in the bank when I make six figures again."
Christopher Carroll, a professor of economics at the John Hopkins University, said more people are realizing that things they once saw as necessities are actually luxuries. He noted that high-end retailers have watched their sales plummet and that Starbucks is losing coffee sales to cheaper alternatives such as McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. Debt is forcing many of the changes.
"What we'll end up with is an economy where there is more investment, less of a trade deficit and spending is more in line with income," Carroll said.
Melanie Pefinis, a 44-year-old yoga and Pilates instructor who lives in Baltimore, has noticed her friends shopping less and talking about how to live more frugally.
Pefinis, who was already living a pretty thrifty life, has given up her Starbucks coffee indulgence and is renting videos for a dollar from the grocery store rather than going to movies. She's been forced to do some of this because her income, savings and investment dropped by nearly half when people cut luxuries such as yoga and Pilates from their lives. But she also said the economy has made her think more about her financial future.
"The economy showed me there has to be a new paradigm shift from what I have done for so long," she said. "It really took this bottom dropping out for people to say that maybe we don't need all this crap."
