America is tightening its belt. In the region, the New Frugality is old habit.

Working mom Kim Kelly is typical. When it began costing $80 to gas up her Jeep Cherokee, "It was a wake-up call," the Crown Point resident said.

Kelly, 37, shifted into thrift gear. Her priorities: Paying the rent, basic living expenses and credit card payments. She bought a Ford Focus, stopped eating out and began brown-bagging her lunch.

Today Starbucks "is a luxury," and nights out are rare. She and her boyfriend, Kris, with three children between them, watch movies at home.

Of course, she's getting by. "Look back to the Depression era," said Kelly, of Spectrum Community Services.

"We still have it pretty good. We're not standing in line at a soup kitchen."

It's business as usual in Northwest Indiana, experts say. While the East and West coasts are shell-shocked by the recession, decades of cutbacks have forged generations of regionites steeled for hard times.

Their mantras: Cut back. Live within your means. Making do is nothing new here, even if it means pawning heirlooms, taking extra jobs or combining households.

It's a Midwest thing, experts say. It's a reflex.

Midwestern core values focus "on the immediately practical," said historian James Madison, author of "The Indiana Way" (Indiana University Press). "Our traditions have disdained fancy and fluff."

In some ways, Hoosiers expect less because their economy has never prospered but has never really been poor, he said. "So expectations are more tempered and realistic," said Madison, a history professor at Indiana University.

Region used to scaling back

It's taken this recession to inspire other states into cutback frenzies. But practicality is second nature to Northwest Indiana in particular, said Carol Rogers, deputy director of the Indiana Business Research Center at IU.

The local economy hinges on oil and steel, volatile industries "that can be pushed around by global pricing," said Rogers, who grew up in Gary. Thus, we're used to rolling with the financial punches.

"One day you're a king, the next day, you're a pauper," she said.

"We're tough, because we're used to difficult situations." Factor in the work ethic of a heavily immigrant population. "A lot of folks would agree that hard work is what they're used to," Rogers said.

"(It's) 'If we can't keep working in the steel mill, we'll find another place to work.' "

Ex-steelworker Chuck Whelan yearns to work. But chronic pain from Crohn's disease forced his retirement in 2002. Then his $2,500 monthly pension and health benefits evaporated when Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt.

Now he and his wife, Ruth, stay afloat on her income as a medical receptionist.

Whelan's small pension and Social Security disability check barely cover the cost of his medical insurance.

He gets "discouraged," said Whelan, 57, of South Haven. Due to a series of ministrokes, he can't concentrate on books, so he tinkers with his car and does housework all day.

He's not complaining: "I have a saying, 'As long as your heart is beating after your feet hit the floor, it's going to be a good day.' Sometimes life is hard. But it teaches you to take care of yourself."

Up-and-coming dollar-stretchers

Though younger, Melissa Deavers already embodies when-the-going-gets-tough, the-tough-get-going grit.

The savvy single, 25, took advantage of low rates and the soft market to buy her first home, a condo in Valparaiso. But she's still stretching her dollars. She relies on natural light when possible "and didn't turn my heat on until the second week of November," said Deavers, a journalism teacher at Portage High School.

She stuck to her holiday budget, too, spending only what she'd socked away for gifts. "My parents taught me to spend my money the right way," she said.

For Kim Kelly, the recession's silver lining is the trickle-down impact on even younger Hoosiers, a generation that regards cell phones and cable as nonluxuries. She is proud that daughter Katie, 16, is working at Dairy Queen and footing the tab for after-school activities like color guard.

"The kids know there's an end to the cash, we can't go to the mall and splurge every weekend," she said.