By many measures, we are a pampered lot, accustomed to convenience and ignorant of sacrifice. We like our easy life of air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, electricity at the flip of a switch, a bounty of produce in the supermarket and a good hair day with the help of the perfect conditioner.

I don't mean to be flippant at a time of economic crisis, when the unemployment rate is creeping upward and most of us are scrimping, some for the very first time. Many families I know are caught in a vise, squeezed by rising costs and stagnant wages and balancing college expenses with retirement saving. ''No'' and ''maybe later'' are suddenly, and thankfully, in vogue.

But let's keep things in perspective. For much of the world, skipping the big screen plasma isn't an issue. Potable water is. Holding on to the family sedan a couple more years isn't an option either. That's because owning a car is only for the very wealthy.

Which is all by way of saying that there is sacrifice and there is sacrifice. Most of us in our generation don't really know enough of the second kind. Thank God.

A recent poll of women's shopping choices brought this point home. Female shoppers are more likely to buy cheaper over-the-counter medication than to scrimp on their favorite cosmetics, according to a phone survey by ShopSmart, a publication from Consumer Reports. The poll showed that 68 percent were willing to buy less expensive brands of medication, eggs and milk, but only 30 percent would make the move to lower price cosmetics.

Hear, hear. Once I find something I like, something that wears well and looks good, I don't switch. I'll skip a meal, do without an oil change and forget the organic yogurt before I do without that which makes my skin youthful and dew-kissed. Oh yes, frugality is fickle.

But lest my gender be labeled vain and shallow, here's a number that comes to our defense. Only 29 percent of us would change our brand of pet food. We do love Spot and Meow-meow, don't we?

Among my friends, this survey has opened up a whole avenue of discussion about our tastes and passions and what constitutes true sacrifice. If we're not willing to give up our brand-name eye shadow and blush, are there also other items we absolutely cannot live without? Think of this as a variation of that rhetorical question: You have five minutes to rescue an item from your house. What would it be?

One friend told me she would be hard-pressed to give up her standing appointment with the manicurist. A set of polished nails not only looks good, she insists, but it also makes her feel good. Another friend loves her Friday night dinners out, the only time she has with her husband alone. A third treasures her hairstylist, who charges more for a haircut than my friend makes an hour. Me, I'd probably cry if I had to give up my weekly house-cleaner.

Surely, the surrender of any of these pleasures would barely nudge the sacrifice needle in wide swaths of other continents, yet their constancy in our lives makes us special. They're treats, perks, indulgences of our time and place. And maybe that's what we should keep in mind. How much we have. How much we take for granted. How much, one day, may become too much.

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