In less than three years, Carrie Rocha and her husband, Marco, paid off $50,000 of nonmortgage debt and accumulated a six-month emergency fund and other savings by clipping coupons, buying store brands and reducing unnecessary expenses.

Rocha, of Maple Grove, Minn., says the couple realized they were spending more than they made and started cutting expenses across the board. But rather than tackle huge expenses, they started small.

"For us, large lifestyle changes would have turned my husband off to the whole idea of saving money. We have been intentional to set aside a little, a little, a little, until it became a lot, a lot, a lot," says Rocha, who now blogs about her experience at Pocketyourdollars.com.

Thrift gurus long have espoused the wisdom of pinching pennies because of its potential to add up to big savings.

But do clipping coupons and just saying "no" to the daily $4 latte really make a difference in the long run? Or is it big stuff -- such as downsizing a house or getting rid of one car -- that really helps families save?

The answer depends on your circumstances, tolerance for doing without and self-discipline.

“Small steps are the best way to form habits that will stick.”

Pinching Pennies Reduces Pain

Danny Kofke, author of "How to Survive (and Perhaps Thrive) on a Teacher's Salary," is a big believer

In a down economy, what are the wealthy doing with their money?

Experts who work with the wealthy and observe their spending habits say rich folks are sitting on their cash. Just like the rest of us, they're worried about the future. Suddenly uncomfortable with the nation's financial volatility, the wealthy are revisiting their investment and savings strategies, says Chris Geczy, director of the Wharton Wealth Management Initiative at the Wharton School in Philadelphia.

"They're consuming less and saving more," Geczy says.

Like so many other Americans, "the mass affluent were overextended" in real estate and investments gone sour, he says. Now, they are more likely to invest in fixed-income vehicles.

"They're still scared of risk," he says.

Investment professional Nancy Rooney has noticed this fear, too.

"There is a subset who -- since September and October -- are frozen and so nervous," says Rooney, managing director and head of the Northeast investment business for private wealth management at J.P. Morgan in New York, which says it serves 51 percent of the Forbes 400 list of U.S. billionaires.

"They're looking at their principal left and realize, 'If I lose any more, I'll jeopardize my quality of life,'" she