Americans have long been in love with the power of plastic.

Visa (V), American Express (AXP), MasterCard (MA), Discover (DFS) -- for many of us, these credit cards represent the possibility to obtain anything the heart desires, and they offer the security of knowing you don't have to pay for it all at once. But as Americans attempt to gain control of their finances in the current credit crisis, more of them are trading in their credit cards for cash.

"Eleven percent of consumers reported they expect to use less credit this coming holiday,” said Marshall Cohen, chief analyst at the market research firm NPD Group, in an email to FOXBusiness.com. “That is a huge difference but may even grow higher as consumers find tightening of credit for them is just beginning.”

Indeed, restaurants and retailers say they have noticed the change. Gary Bologna, Chief Operating Officer of Alicart Restaurant Group, which operates several restaurants in New York City, has noticed an increased number of customers paying with cash at both Virgil’s Real BBQ and Carmine’s restaurants.

“We kind of noticed the uptick in cash sales, which started really in September at our Carmine’s restaurant,” Bologna said. “When we saw the trend continue into this past month, October -- we noticed it was happening at the bar and in the dining room -- probably a 10% reduction in credit card sales and 10% increase in cash usage.”

There is a movement among personal finance experts who recommend paying cash for everything in an effort to prevent overspending. Proponents of the cash-only lifestyle say that most people are better able to control their spending when they are forced to pay for what they’re buying in cash, rather than put it on a card and forget about it.

Renee Brohard, a public relations consultant for her husband’s graphic design business, said she and her husband decided to start using a cash budget after a friend of hers told her it had completely changed her life. Brohard said it wasn’t easy to make the transition, but she now feels it’s actually easier for her to manage her finances.

“People treat you differently when you’re paying with cash -- it’s less cool. It seems to be more acceptable when you use a credit card,” she said. “But I actually feel like I spend less time spending money when I use cash; before I had to enter all those receipts in Quicken.”

Even online vendors are making it possible for more people to pay with cash. Ebillme.com, a cash billing service that launched in 2004, has experienced a flood of interest from online vendors who want to give consumers a cash payment option other than a debit card. The company secured more venture capital financing this past September to allow for more aggressive expansion. CEO Marwan Forzley said a significant number of consumers will be transitioning to cash in an effort to control spending.

"We’ve lived, in the past few years, where anything you wanted to buy could be financed. I think given the state of the economy, people are shifting their behavior. That’s why debit and cash-like payments are growing because they give people control over their financial life."

But paying with a credit card does have its advantages. When you switch to cash, for what you gain in control, you lose in convenience. Paying with a credit card is usually easier and faster than paying in cash, and many credit cards offer rewards programs and cash back incentives to card users.

Even if you do plan to stop using your credit cards, closing all of your charge accounts is not a good idea. When you close a credit card, you effectively eliminate a line of available credit. If you’re carrying any debt at all, your ratio of debt to available credit will be higher when you close a line of available credit, which could cause your credit score to drop, said Steve Katz, director of consumer education for TransUnion’s TrueCredit.com.

Aside from the impact that closing your accounts can have on your debt to credit ratio, Katz said there are other reasons to keep your credit accounts open, even if you’re not using them.

"A) you might want or need to use it someday and B) if you have had a credit card and you’ve always paid well on it, than that is part of a very positive item on your credit history and you really don’t want to lose that item,” he said.

CPA Howard Dvorkin, founder of Consolidated Counseling Services, a nonprofit debt counseling firm, said consumers are definitely switching to cash as they’ve used up equity lines in their homes and maxed out their credit cards. 

“When times get tough, when the economy doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, we return to values we once had, which this country was built upon: conserve money; don’t spend money you don’t have; don’t take out loans that chances are you'll never repay,” Dvorkin said. 

Dvorkin advocates credit card use for those consumers that are disciplined enough to spend no more than they can pay off at the end of the month, but says cash is a good idea for those who can't hold back when on a shopping spree. He thinks this recent switch to cash is temporary and will end as soon as the economic crisis does.

“The problem is that the economic consumer has an extremely short memory and when the economy does turn -- and it will turn -- those bad habits will come and rear their ugly heads again.”