As prices rose further, pumping declined even early in the week, as consumers tried to minimize even nondiscretionary driving.

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When McNamara and his team at SpendingPulse saw the first signs of demand destruction in 2008, they segmented pumping into discretionary versus nondiscretionary.

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It says its customers are heavily weighted toward nondiscretionary spending categories, such as grocery and pharmacy, while its financial-institution client base includes more than 1, 300 customers.

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Burris, in turn, asked the Illinois court to force White to sign the certificate by ruling that White's signature is, in effect, nothing more than a ceremonial, nondiscretionary government action.

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Let's hope that today's kids will be awash in iPods and Wii consoles, but the recession presents a great opportunity to market nondiscretionary items as gifts--Whole Foods gift cards, for instance.

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