Last night my friend's daughter, who is a student at UC Berkeley, was nursing a cold and a couple broken toes. Seeing her sick and rundown made me think of my college days and shudder. "Man, am I glad I am not there anymore," I told her. Between working three jobs, studying full time and always, always, looking for money, I was constantly sick. Then there was the debt. Because my alma mater, Boston University, stopped taking credit cards for books, that left the children of working class families like me in a bind. I literally would go to the bank and ask how much cash I could get from my credit card. If it was $500 I would take the full $500. If it was $200, ditto. By the end of my four years, between my husband and I, we racked up at least $20,000 in credit card debt on top of student loans. We were literally working day jobs just to pay for rent and debt. It was miserable.

And it is endemic of our generation. As Newsweek writer Eve Conant pointed out, our generation "racks up debt the way our grandparents used to squirrel away pennies."

As talk of recession and belt-tightening makes headlines, I wonder where and how I lost my grandfather's sense of thrift. Like many young professionals (I'm 36), I embraced the lessons of my seniors about hard work. Yet my generation racks up debt the way our grandparents used to squirrel away pennies. A study by the Journal of Consumer Research to be released next month, titled "Tightwads and Spendthrifts," finds that people ages 18 to 40 are most likely to say they're spending beyond their comfort range. While my grandfather refused to take out a mortgage, I bought my first two-bedroom condo (in a marginal neighborhood) for $450,000 two years ago with 5 percent down and an interest-only loan for the next seven years (note to boss: please don't ever fire me). Though mired in debt, I still manage to sleep most nights. "Your generation has a completely different attitude about going into debt," says George Loewenstein, professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon, who says the availability of cheaper goods, as well as Internet shopping and longer store hours, make it far easier to waste money. "It used to be that the simple opening and closing of store doors exerted some control on spending. That's all gone now," he says.

My generation grew up just as home-economics classes were being phased out and credit cards were being ushered in (the general-purpose credit card took off in the late '60s). Yet even though we're saddled with debt, I have heard more conversations about avoiding carbs than I've ever heard about hoarding bread crumbs. We discuss our sex lives more than our bills. How often do the words "frugal" or "thrifty" come up in conversation, especially as a compliment? The words have a distant ring of the 1930s to them.

As Conant rightfully pointed out, it is high time we make frugal chic. People in their 30s have not had to live through a recession and the consequences of not having a nest egg. Thankfully, the credit card debt from our college days is long gone, although we have a mortgage and student loans. But I am constantly harping on my youngest sister to live within her means and not rack up debt on the plastic. And to their credit, people are starting to tighten their belts. My friend's daughter is attending school and paying for living expenses on a scholarship. "I would not have attended this school if I had to go into debt," she told me. As for the overall economy, high-end stores like Tiffany are seeing slower sales growth and at WalMart, shoppers have been redeeming gift cards for basic necessities like toilet paper and food, and not flat screen TVs and iPods, according to Conant.

What do you think? Do you consider yourself a frugal person? How do you encourage your own children to live within their means?