Hit the button

Why isn't there a Reset button for weeks like this? Surely, if there was such a thing, I'd be slapping my palm down on it repeatedly today. I'd restart the day without the dog-induced tension at 6:30 a.m., without the cat in my face, without the last-minute bleary-eyed run to school. And without the near miss of my daughter's friend's car, parked on the side of the street. (It's a state trooper car.)
I'd rewind to my morning check of Facebook. Once there, I'd skim over a link to a money advice columnist named Kat Hnatyshyn. I wouldn't click it. I wouldn't read it. Because I already have too much free-floating rage going this morning.
The blog post in question can be found on Kat's Money Corner on KansasCity.com, entitled "Show me some attitude."
Kat's topic is reining in your spendthrift urges, freezing that credit card in a block of ice, quelling that unchecked frivolity that so many of us have these days:

Saying “no” to those little indulgences – like a $4 mocha latte – may be the hardest change of all, but those little expenses add up. Use a goal-setting technique: Start a savings account for something special, such as a nice vacation. Every time you feel the urge for one of those indulgences, stash that money instead in a place reserved especially for that....

Are there really people left out there who still have difficulty with the $4 mocha latte question? Is there someone, right now, in Kat's office (at CommunityAmerica Credit Union) saying, "I'm not sure what I should do with all this extra money and vacation time I have. Do you think I should put it in savings, or should I splurge on a flat-screen TV?" If so, I definitely don't want to read about them.
Right now we have less than $100 of "mad money" to cover our gas and milk purchases until a week from Friday. And our daughter's birthday is this weekend. We'll have to go into savings if we want to give her any kind of present (and we do).
Not that I'm asking for any pity or sympathy. We're still better off than a lot of people who are completely unemployed.
Just about everyone I know has suffered some kind of major lifestyle cutback. If they aren't laid off, they're dealing with an unpaid furlough or a cutback in the business they own. No one is having any trouble saying no to the mocha latte. As for the impulse to run up the credit cards--well, JC Penney just sent us a note saying their new store credit card rate will be 23.99 percent! So I'll have no trouble staying off the card (and perhaps staying out of their stores, as well.).
Believe us, Kat, we'd all love to be optimistic enough about our futures to go on a little spending spree. Maybe replace that bathrobe with the gaping hole in the elbow. Or go all out and buy a toaster oven from a store, rather than a garage sale. Or maybe just buy our families something nice for Christmas after a grindingly long year.
But we're not stupid. Every indication is that things will continue to be bad for a long, long time.
Oops. Sorry about the angry, downer ending. Guess I need a