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Fewer Americans say they'll be tightening their financial belts during the holiday season this year, a private study shows.

The Consumer Federation of American and the Credit Union National Association released the results of a joint survey forecasting the holiday shopping season. Among the chief findings: 43 percent of consumers say they'll cut back on holiday spending. That's better than the 55 percent who said the same thing a year ago amid the throes of a massive national recession.

The improved data, however, still lags behind 2000 to 2007 figures.

Americans are still worried about their financial situations – 36 percent say they're worse off this year, 19 percent say they're better off and 44 percent say their situations are about the same.

But fewer consumers are worried about meeting their monthly debt payments – 24 percent compared with 28 percent a year ago.

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The CFA and CUNA also offer some common-sense advice to avoid breaking the bank during the holidays.

Among the tips:

• Prepare a budget and make a price list of the gifts you plan to buy.

• Shop around for deals using the Internet or even the phone.

• Avoid overloading on debt. Pay cash when able, but if you use a credit card, pay of the debt as quickly as possible.

• Shop for next year's holidays right after this year's are over. Great bargains are to be had.

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This post by Richard Conniff originally appeared on CBS MoneyWatch.com.

There are plenty of good phrases to sum up the American consumer spirit of the past few decades — such as "Were you completely insane?" But what sticks in my mind is a bumper sticker I once saw displayed on a late-model Hummer hauling a trailer loaded with matching sparkle-painted $15,000 jet skis: "The one who dies with the most toys wins." I couldn't figure out why dying was key to the deal. But now I get it: There was no way that bozo could pay for so much crap in one lifetime — and his kids can't handle the bills either.

American consumers have awakened, bolt upright, with belated sticker shock ("I bought what!? I spent how much!?"), from a shopping spree that's arguably lasted since the early 1970s. That's when spending started to outpace economic growth, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. Credit cards proliferated. Easy credit based on rising real-estate and stock prices fed the delusion that we could go on consuming more than we produce forever. And it just got giddier after 1997, when consumer spending bubbled up from 67 percent to more than 70 percent of gross domestic product (versus 55 to 65 percent in more sober economies). "People are using their homes almost as a third income," an executive for a major lender told me in 2005, and she thought that was just fine.

Then real estate — and every other market — went bust and American household wealth dropped $14 trillion overnight. One year after the collapse of Lehman Bros., the investment bank that exemplified Wall Street's infatuation with borrowing, we're all learning to pay our accumulated bills with what we can earn from our first and second incomes, both of which seem likely to vanish at any moment. (Full disclosure: I'm a journalist and my wife is a real-estate agent. At least we didn't invest in buggy whips.) When consumer confidence came creeping back in August, the stock market fluttered upward. But the rebound took confidence only to midrecession levels. "Instead of being suicidal, it's just depressed," says Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein.

So the big question now is whether the American consumer, regarded as key to any recovery, is only temporarily missing in action. Or are we seeing a permanent shift in attitudes toward what we used to call "retail therapy"? Making it permanent could be a good thing for many badly strapped households — financially first of all, but also culturally, as people rediscover life beyond the shopping mall. But in an economy so dependent on consumer spending, that would be bad news for the recovery.

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If a little-known but influential alliance of state politicians, large retailers, and tax collectors has its way, the days of tax-free Internet shopping may be nearly over.

A bill expected to be introduced in Congress as early as Monday would rewrite the ground rules for mail order and Internet sales by eliminating what its supporters view as a "loophole" that, in many cases, allows Americans to shop over the Internet without paying sales taxes.

Currently, Americans who shop over the Internet from out-of-state vendors aren't always required to pay sales taxes at the time of purchase. Californians buying books from Amazon.com or cameras from Manhattan's B&H Photo, for example, won't pay sales taxes at checkout time that they would if shopping at a local mall.

"We will have the bill ready for introduction by next Monday," said Neal Osten of the National Conference of State Legislatures. "We finalized the language and now we're working out the remaining issues and adding some new provisions at the request of various stakeholders."

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From cars to clothes, prices have been lowered on virtually everything as the recession has deepened — making the current retail climate a bargain hunter's dream, but a retailer's nightmare.

"Many stores can't protect their brand right now because they have to worry about cash flow," said Gilbert Harrison, the chairman of Financo, an investment bank that specializes in merchandising.

In order to keep this cash flowing — or just trickling in — even high-end stores like Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue have offered serious discounts, especially during the holiday season. Shoppers once had to wait months until full-priced items went on sale, but not anymore. And big-ticket items are no exception.

Beth Kobliner, author of "Get A Financial Life," agrees.

"Retailers have been hurt by the economy and are doing everything they can to attract customers," Kobliner explained.

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