NEWCASTLE -- Gasoline or pizza.

Tired after a day of working overtime, Carolyn Hatch really wanted to pick up pizza for her family's supper one recent evening. But the fuel gauge in her three-year-old Jeep Liberty told her to make a different choice.

The next morning, pizza money went to feed a thirsty Jeep.

Fast-food is a budget buster these days at the Hatch home. So is grabbing a morning coffee and donut in town. Or hitting a movie with daughter Samantha.

A family vacation? That's not even on the radar screen. A family outing is a trip to Sam's Club in Augusta, with plans to be back by supper.

Carolyn and Robert Hatch aren't poor. She's a housekeeping supervisor at Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta. He's an established building contractor and volunteer firefighter.

The Hatches are solidly middle-income Mainers. In a typical year, they handle the car payments, home improvements and routine bills that support their way of life.

This is not a typical year.

As an expensive winter melts into an uncertain spring, middle-income Mainers such as the Hatches are caught in a vise. Higher prices for energy and food are squeezing them from one direction. A shrinking economy -- at home and across the country -- is closing in from the other side, prompting people to hunker down and reset priorities.

Maine retailers report a drop-off in spending. Polls say residents are deeply pessimistic about the economy, and most shoppers plan to delay major purchases.

Bankruptcy filings are up sharply in Maine, and the number of people falling behind on their utility bills is surging. Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures stand at record levels for the state.

In recent weeks, a parade of residents served by various government programs have made passionate pleas in Augusta. These are among the most vulnerable when state revenues slow and the pressure's on to cut spending.

Making sacrifices

Less visible, less vocal, is the average Maine household, defined as two adults and a child with a median income of roughly $44,000 a year. A draft study by the Maine Public Spending Research Group, which advocates lower taxes, shows that this income hasn't been keeping pace with rising expenses since at least 2006, well before the most recent price surges.

"People are either going into debt or they're sacrificing -- doing without -- to make ends meet," said Pat Hart, the group's executive director.

At the Hatch home, driving newer vehicles, building an addition on the house, even picking up a pizza once a week used to be the aspirations and comforts of a hard-working family.

And they were achievable, until this winter.

Sitting in their half-finished addition earlier this month, Carolyn and Robert Hatch spoke about their diminished outlook and the steps they now must take to make ends meet.

"It takes a while to get back to living comfortably at this point," Robert Hatch said. "You need to re-evaluate and adjust to the conditions."

Robert Hatch has been in construction most of his adult life. He doesn't advertise. Never needed to. His skills command more than $25 an hour, and most winters, he finds inside remodeling projects to keep the cash coming.

Not this winter. The housing bust has big contractors competing, and low-balling prices, for the smaller projects on which Hatch depends. So he's leaving his business card around town and trying to persuade clients with fair-weather work, like siding a house or reroofing a shed, to move up their schedules.

"I hate to beg for work," he said. "But I haven't had the phone ring in a while."

Robert Hatch has a stack of bills on his desk. Every day, he studies them. Record heating oil prices and a jump in the cost of grocery staples such as milk, eggs and bread have added hundreds of dollars to a budget already under stress.

Gasoline costs at least 70 cents a gallon more than it did a year ago. The $20 bill his wife was going to use for pizza barely pushed the Jeep's fuel gauge to halfway.

"I might let the light bill go, pay it a couple of days late," he said.

"I just try to look at what I need to pay at the time." Hatch also has payments on a 2007 Chevy Silverado pickup truck. In years past, he plowed snow. But after beating up the transmission in his old truck, he decided not to buy a plow for his new vehicle. Bad timing. This snowy winter, he could have scraped by.

Robert Hatch grew up in the 70-year-old cape-style home, which overlooks the Damariscotta River from Academy Hill. It's snug for a family, only 24 by 28 feet. So when his mother died and he inherited the property, he took out a second mortgage to add a 26- by 30-foot kitchen and great room.

Now he can't make the monthly payments.

Hatch knew enough not to ignore the problem.

He went to his loan officer at Damariscotta Bank & Trust. The bank agreed to defer payments for two months, until his spring projects get rolling. And his bankers let him know he wasn't alone.

"It's a pride thing," he said. "People don't want to say they need help."

To pick up the slack, Carolyn Hatch is grabbing any overtime she can get at the hospital. It's a physical job. By Friday night, she's exhausted.

Cutting back spending

At home, Carolyn Hatch looks for ways to economize. High on her list is food that makes more than one meal.

Baked beans. Chicken pot pie. Various soups.

It's still not enough. Four times this year, she got to the checkout line at the local Hannaford supermarket and took out her Discover card.

"To put food on a credit card, I never thought I'd do that," she said. Food costs are clobbering the family. The latest Consumer Price Index found flour, milk and eggs up 24 percent over the past year, 10 times the rate of inflation.

Energy costs are a problem, too. The Hatches both drive vehicles that get lousy gas mileage. Luckily, Carolyn Hatch's commute is less than three miles -- her husband restricts most of his driving to around town. Even so, they say, they each part with roughly $50 a week at the gas station.

The old cape, where the bedrooms are, is poorly insulated and warmed by an oil furnace. The Hatches keep it at 60 degrees and wear sweat shirts. The family has burned 200 gallons to date this winter. With the average price of heating oil hitting a new record last week -- $3.78 a gallon -- the Hatches don't want to buy any more this season.

The wood stove in the addition has been a savior. Robert Hatch bought four cords of tree-length wood at $70 a cord and cut it up himself. The stove keeps the great room cozy, and that's where the family spent much of the winter.

The anxiety felt in Maine households this year is being chronicled by Market Decisions, a Portland research firm. Its most recent phone survey found Mainers are more pessimistic about the economy today than any time since 2000.

In a poll of 400 residents, 56 percent said this is a bad time to make a major purchase. Forty-three percent said they were worse off today than a year ago, and 22 percent expected to be worse off a year from now.

"Mainers are always pretty skeptical about the economy," said Curt Mildner, the company's president.

"But it's surprising to see consumer confidence take such a tumble."

When asked what is the most important issue facing the state, residents overwhelmingly identified the economy or jobs. Taxes, the overall cost of living, the state budget and the cost of fuel also ranked high.

These responses, Mildner said, reflect a common theme he has observed over several years.

Maine can be a tough place to make a living, even in good times. Now take the effects of the slowing economy, pile on high heat and gasoline costs, and add rising food prices.

"Have people reached a breaking point?" Mildner said. "It's hard to see how an average family can pay its bills."

No relief in sight

The housing and banking crises might be getting more national headlines, but overall, rising energy and food prices are the biggest problems facing middle class Mainers, said Michael Donihue, an economics professor at Colby College. The pessimism is understandable, he said, because there's no relief in sight.

Carolyn and Robert Hatch face a common dilemma, Donihue said. Especially in rural Maine, it's common for one spouse to have an "anchor job" that's more stable and has benefits, while the partner's job is seasonal or volatile.

"The problem," Donihue said, "is when the economy goes soft, people in cyclical industries bear the burden."

Robert Hatch is optimistic that he can start bringing in money again, once the weather improves. He has a house-painting job lined up. But he and Carolyn have become more cautious.

"I'm worried about my family," Robert Hatch said. "I worry about everyday bills: the mortgage, putting food on the table and keeping heat in the house. And I don't want my wife to have to work so many crazy hours."

Their first priority is to pay down bills, then squirrel away something extra as a hedge against another bad winter. Later this spring, they'll be checking the mailbox for the government's economic stimulus payment.

That check, which should total $1,500, will pay bills, buy firewood, and maybe put some heating oil in the tank. No one's talking about stimulating the economy.

When tourists start streaming to the midcoast, Carolyn might look for a waitress job. Sock away a bit more money.

The unfinished porch connecting the cape to the addition and the kitchen without a working sink are projects that may wait. Samantha's 13th birthday is in July. She'd love a Nintendo Wii game player and an Apple iPod, as many kids have.

"We might be able to get one," Carolyn Hatch said, "but not both."