RALEIGH, N.C. — It’s now common for shoppers to slap down their credit or debit card for something as small as a cup of coffee or a pack of gum. But some are returning to the old way: They’re paying cash.

Turning away from the age of plastic, these shoppers say that the act of handing over that cold, hard cash makes them think twice about spending — in a way that using a card does not.

“When the money’s gone, it’s gone,” said Kristi West, a Raleigh mother of two who is moving her family to a cash-only system for most purchases. “You can feel that money, and you can look at that money, and you can count it. When you slide that debit card, you just slide that card.”

There are lots of reasons people might consider switching back to cash.

Some, mired in debt and cut off from credit lines, may have no choice. Others may simply be feeling the pinch of the continually tight economy and mounting household debt.

That’s not to say credit isn’t king. It’s generally safer than carrying lots of cash, most cards come with some kind of rewards, and there’s the ease of use, especially as more people make purchases online. In the United States, the average household has at least one credit card and carries nearly $10,700 in credit card debt, according to CardWeb.com.

Debit- and credit-card transactions continue to increase in popularity — up from a combined 38 percent of all transactions by sales volume in 2005 to 45 percent in 2010, according to The Nilson Report.

But there’s no question: Cash is holding its own as part of a broader trend by some shoppers of getting back to basics after the recession.

Despite the increase in credit and debit transactions, cash payments have remained fairly stable. Nilson reports that cash transactions went from 21 percent of volume in 2005 to 19 percent in 2010.

“Consumers that carry a balance even occasionally or have had trouble making their payments in the past are increasingly gravitating toward other methods of payment, either by choice or by force,” said Greg McBride, analyst for the financial website bankrate.com. “For some consumers, it’s a fundamental shift.”

Even shoppers who are debt-free are changing over.

Cyndy Bunn of Rocky Mount, N.C., is already a frugal shopper. She keeps track of her finances with money management software. She clips coupons, grinds wheat that she uses to make her own bread, and barters with friends for goods and services.

But she said that even for her, overspending is too easy when you’re swiping your debit card.

“In my mind, I didn’t add it up,” she said. “You’re not thinking. … I’m just trying to save in every way, and I feel like cash is going to force me to be better.”

Changing the way she budgets and spends has been tough, Bunn said, because it has required her to cut back on purchases she would have previously justified as OK because it was a good deal.

Under her new cash system, she has set herself a grocery budget of $350 a month — roughly half of what she’d spend sometimes in a month.