A city girl cut back on costs (9)
I believe the answer is:
annapolis
'a city' is the definition.
(I know that Annapolis is or was a state capital)
'girl cut back on costs' is the wordplay.
'girl' becomes 'Anna'.
'cut back on costs' becomes 'polis' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'anna'+'polis'='ANNAPOLIS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for annapolis that I've seen before include "US city" , "Capital of Maryland" , "US state capital" .)