As Europe prepared to ring in 2009, many revellers said belt-tightening was their top New Year's resolution. The vow followed the most volatile financial year in decades, a time that saw stock markets melt around the world and hundreds of thousands of workers lose their jobs.

Even shoppers in the affluent area west of Paris were scaling back purchases for the traditional New Year's Eve feast.

"We're not going to celebrate in a big way - we're being careful," said architect Moussa Siham, 24. "We will be eating fish for New Year's dinner."

Sydney was the world's first major city to ring in 2009, showering its shimmering harbour with a kaleidoscope of light that drew cheers from more than a million people.

Spectator Randolph King, 63, of York, England, whose retirement fund was gutted in the global financial crisis, summed up the feeling of many as 2008 came to a close.

"I'm looking forward to 2009," he said. "Because it can't get much worse."

Partygoers everywhere struggled to forget their troubles.

In Ireland, thousands of Dubliners and tourists gathered outside the capital's oldest medieval cathedral, Christ Church, to hear the traditional New Year's Eve bell-ringing. "It is a wondrously beautiful note on which to end what, for many people, has been an awfully out-of-tune 2008," said Gary Maguire, a volunteer pulling the ropes.

On Dublin's north side, Danny McCoy, a recently laid-off construction worker, mulled over his waning fortunes as he got his hair cut at the Drumcondra Barber Shop.

"Last New Year's I had a fat wallet. I didn't have to worry about paying for my round, never mind the taxi fare home," he said. "Tonight I've a mind to keep the festivities close to home, because I can't really afford to do anything."

London Mayor Boris Johnson rejected defeatism in a New Year's message projected on the wall of the Shell Building.

"There are those who say we should look ahead to 2009 with foreboding," Johnson said.

"I want to quote Col Kilgore in 'Apocalypse Now' when he says 'Someday captain, this war is going to end'; and someday, this recession is going to end," he added. "Let's go forward into 2009 with enthusiasm and purpose."

But Johnson's words may fall on deaf ears. A poll commissioned by the British Web site www.gocompare.com found that Britons were preoccupied with their sinking finances. Some 48 per cent intended to reduce or eliminate debt for their New Year's resolution, and 42 per cent planned to cut spending, according to the survey by Loudhouse Research.

In Malaysia, the government - mindful of the shaky economy - opted against sponsoring any celebration at all.