If there is a silver fiscal-practice lining in the current dark clouds of a recession, it could be this: Consumers are getting more serious about paying down credit card debt, and possibly even about using cash. Talk about your old-fashioned values.

The business pages of newspapers these days report that fewer cardholders are making late payments on bank-issued cards such as MasterCard and Visa. That makes sense in a recession, but leaves a question about the significance of changing credit practices on the longer-term economic picture.

University at Buffalo research scholar Lawrence Southwick best described today’s situation for many Americans as a penchant to cut back—including on Christmas spending. Caution is the watchword as uncertainty looms on taxes or interest rate increases.

People react to the flood of economic information that accompanies dramatic changes, even though consumer spending has not really dropped much since this recession began. The spending pattern is more of a leveling out, although the long-term trend of consumer debt is down just a bit. Overall, that may imply less consumer willingness to incur debt even if a climate of freer spending returns.

From the point of view of consumers, not spending—frugality, to use another old-fashioned term—opens some additional capital for investment, keeping interest rates down. Some experts anticipate more inflation unless the government is able to cut back the growth in the money supply. The bottom line is that people are worried.

There’s also caution on the part of business and industry, which also is incurring liabilities on investments. Building a new factory comes with consequences, real or perceived. From the point of view of business investment, particularly important to a Rust Belt city such as Buffalo and its surroundings, that private-sector caution hurts.

The “pay down your debt” consumer mentality also is a result of increased consumer attention to the costs of debt. Credit card debt can be 20 percent or worse, which adds up to a real penalty that looms larger in family budgets as other costs rise and income is threatened. As Southwick said, people are waking up to the fact that their income may not grow enough to keep up with both desires and obligations; they have grown cautious. There’s nothing like a money squeeze to focus the mind on a budget.

An increase in total savings could be a good thing for future growth, of course, because even if the money supply tightens, some will have reserve cash to help them take advantage of bargain investments—a potential stability factor for the markets.

The Great Depression instilled frugality—not to mention recycling—in a generation that continued practicing that virtue even when good times returned. This economic downturn may not have that deep an impact, but it already has people thinking. The challenge is to keep the virtue when the pain has been left behind.