tighten your belt, belt tightening,religion

Google's new CFO, Patrick Pichette, is leading the company's belt tightening. A former executive at Bell Canada, his impact was already evident in the firm's third-quarter results, which it announced in October. Although the company's revenue was slightly lower than analyst estimates, earnings were higher due to cost-cutting measures spearheaded by Pichette, such as decreasing the number of new hires. "Google has certainly gotten religion on expenses, and that is due largely to the new CFO," says Sanford Bernstein's Lindsay.

Applied Materials profit dropped 26% as sales of equipment to semiconductor makers slowed amid belt tightening by memory-chip companies.


tighten your belt
to spend less money than you did before because you have less money:
I've had to tighten my belt since I stopped working full-time.


religion Hide phonetics
noun
1 [C or U] the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship:
the Christian religion

2 [C] INFORMAL an activity which someone is extremely enthusiastic about and does regularly:
Football is a religion for these people.