By Tiffany Hsu

Courtney Hamilton’s mound of credit card debt turned her into a first-rate penny pincher this year. But as the holiday gift-giving season approaches her finances may force her to really switch on her inner Scrooge. Hamilton, 29, a legal secretary from Los Angeles, has $200 to stretch across six gifts. She used to buy as many as 15 presents each year, spending up to $100 each.

She once gave a friend a $120 computer hard drive; this season, that pal is getting a make-up package Hamilton bought on clearance from Avon.com. For her co-workers, Hamilton said she might put together gift baskets of lotions and bath salts from a discount store. “I have no shame in saying I’m a bargain shopper, especially now,” she said. “I’m hard-pressed for some cash, and I’m trying to live beneath my means. Besides, spending a whole lot of money on somebody is not the point.” Frugal gift-shopping is nothing new, but it will likely become the norm this year, recent consumer research indicates:

* Pressured by high food and energy prices and anxious about job security, 76 percent of consumers plan to cut back on holiday spending this year and 60 percent said they would give fewer gifts, according to a poll released this month by Consumer Reports.

* Shoppers expected to spend 6.5 percent less this year on gifts, and more than 10 percent said they were still struggling with holiday debt from last year, according to a survey released in October by the Deloitte consulting company.

* And they plan to spend 5 percent less on gift cards this holiday, according to a September survey from Archstone Consulting. Although the plastic rectangles will still be among the most popular presents, they will likely go toward necessities such as groceries and gas.

For many people facing tighter budgets, paring back the number of people they give gifts to is the first plan of attack. “People have their A lists and then their B lists, but this year you’re really going to have to stick to the A list,” said Jane Buckingham, editor-in-chief of Gifts.com and president of the Intelligence Group, a trend forecasting company. “And sure, there will be some who decide not to give gifts at all.”

People on the fringe of a gift giver’s social circle, such as teachers or mail carriers, should expect cookies or nothing at all this year. Groups are going in together on gifts so individuals won’t have to shell out on their own. At offices, workers are debating whether to hold gift exchanges. Some shoppers trawl sales for gift items or set aside cash each week for presents to avoid overspending with credit cards.

Hamilton said she planned to “knock out” gift shopping for her entire family at Mervyns’ liquidation sales. She will also give old furniture that she bought in thrift stores and refinished herself, and has scoured websites such as Half.com and eBay for cheap, present-worthy books and CDs.

Like many, Hamilton is starting her Christmas shopping early. Consumers need more time to look through more deals in more places for the one right gift, rather than snap up several presents in hopes that at least one is a hit, Buckingham said.

“They can’t wait until the last minute because they have to be careful within a budget,” she said. “They can’t just frivolously spend. The key to this season is that people are going to be much more thoughtful, because they have to be. “

Many gift givers are donating to charity in the recipient’s name or slicing their personal spending so they can splurge on presents for their children, she said. Novelties and gag gifts will sell poorly this year, according to Nielsen’s holiday forecast. Meanwhile, DVDs, video games and books are expected to stay strong as people cut back on entertainment and dining-out expenses.

The forecast also predicted that household goods — including toiletries, cookbooks and pet care items—would be big buys. Presents centered around jewellery and apparel will be unpopular unless gift givers focus on basic items such as fleece jackets and casualwear. As more people stay in, experts say, some are trying to save money by using their newly found free time to make gifts, whether it’s stitching quilts or decorating personalized cards. Some, such as Corazon Rios, 28, an arts administrator from Los Angeles, knit or crochet gifts or give friends home-baked treats.

The stigma of re-gifting is fading, and gift givers now hunt through resale stores, garage sales and sites such as Freecycle. One upside: It’s more environmentally friendly. Nearly 30,000 people have signed an online petition pledging to give only handmade presents. At Internet crafts marketplace Etsy.com, where more than 200,000 merchants hawk handmade goods, sales have exploded from $26m in 2007 to more than $64.5m so far in 2008.

Jerrie Dean, 54, a piano teacher from Santee, California, once gave out harmonicas to her students and spent about $10 each on neighbors. But the faltering stock market chewed up her gift-buying income, so now she hopes a batch of chocolate chip cookies will suffice. The rough economy has brought flashbacks of holidays 20 years ago, when she was raising her first son alone and used the Sunday comics to wrap his gifts.

“There’s an awareness that the security I felt last year I don’t feel this year,” she said. She’s spending 50 percent less on gifts for family members, and plans to supplement them by organizing a get-together to watch old home videos. As her nieces and nephews trickle off to college, she has asked permission to leave them off her gift list.

“This time, I really became aware of where my money was going, and had to think it through a little more instead of compulsively going out and buying something random,” she said. “Before, I would just buy something that looked more expensive.”

More and more gift givers are heading online, where they can scrounge for promotional discount codes and free shipping offers, experts said. Nearly three-quarters of consumers will conduct online research before visiting a store, and a record 71 percent of consumers will spend at least part of their holiday budget online, according to the Deloitte survey.

Traffic to Web sites that compile and announce coupons and discounts shot up 28 percent between October 2007 and last month, according to data from Web site monitor Hitwise. The percentage of people online who checked out Coupons.com, Slickdeals.com and Smartsource.com more than doubled. Visits nearly quadrupled at Couponmom.com.

Jodi Jill, 35, of Los Angeles is searching for 10 percent- to 15 percent-off coupon codes online so she can afford Guitar Hero for her brother. She lost her job several weeks ago when the auto dealership she worked at declared bankruptcy and closed. Now, she has less than $200 to buy more than 20 gifts. But buying presents, even on a limited budget, lifts her spirits, Jill said. “It matters to me to spend time to shop for people I care about,” she said. “It’s going to be a tight Christmas, but it’s still going to be Christmas.”