Free-tail Therapy

Did you spend all your cash on holiday gifts, and now you're not sure how you’re going to afford a social life until the start of 2010? Yeah, us too. Actually, considering the number of Snuggies we bought for friends and family, it might be more like 2011. But our financial dire straights have taught us that the mall can actually be a pretty decent place to hang out even when you're broke.

Here are a few totally free activities we found at our local mall:

• Watch—Before heading to the mall, create a bingo board for your friends by filling each square with a mall character, like speed walker, crying baby, woman wearing all Abercrombie & Fitch while shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch, or the Build-A-Bear employee who looks like she’s about to tear out her hair. Walk around the mall as a group until everyone gets a bingo.
• Bite—Your average mall food court has enough free samples to rival a Vegas buffet. You and your friends could certainly make a mid-afternoon snack out of the teriyaki chicken on a toothpick. Create a strategy among your group so you can get as many samples as possible without anyone realizing that you’re taking more than one taste of each.
• Sniff—Go into a candle or bath and body store and treat your nose to something yummy. You can make smell tests for your friends and see if anyone can actually guess what they're sniffing. Don’t forget to leave with a spritz from a tester bottle!
• Dress—Go to the top level of any department store and you’ll find the fancy schmancy gear. Have your own black tie mini-party in your dressing room; don floor-length sequined gowns and speak in haughty accents.

We must warn you, because we know from experience, that you shouldn’t attempt any of these while wearing a Snuggie with nothing under it. Safety pins aren’t what they used to be and, well, let’s just say that when we left the mall yesterday, the teriyaki chicken sample lady was whimpering, “I just wish I could unsee it all.”

What do you do when you're broke?

Related Post: How to Have Fun While You're Trapped at Home