SAN FRANCISCO (Bloomberg) - Google Inc. chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said the company is being careful about spending and that employees have become more attuned to eliminating waste since he arrived at the company.

Google has stopped providing water bottles to workers and shut down some of its free cafes to save money, Mr. Pichette said during an investor conference today in Dana Point, California. Mr. Pichette became finance chief last August.

"We at Google took a stance last fall to say, 'I think we should be prudent in this environment,'" Mr. Pichette said.

Google, owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine, faces a slowdown in online advertising sales - its main source of revenue. Last quarter, the company reported its first sequential drop in sales since going public in 2004. To cope with the slump, Google eliminated about 200 sales and marketing jobs in March, one percent of its workforce.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, fell $2.01 to $436.76 at 2.11 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares had risen 43 percent this year before today.

The company continues to invest in its main products, which are fully funded for this year, Mr. Pichette said.

"We're very fortunate to have a very strong balance sheet with no debt," Mr. Pichette said.