The following is a guest post by Emily Guy Birken, a freelance writer, recovering English teacher, and stay-at-home-mom. She lives in Lafayette, Indiana, with her mechanical engineer husband and toddler son. Her musings on life, parenting and money can be found at The SAHMnambulist and Live Like a Mensch.

Every day around 3:00 in the afternoon, my sweet, well-behaved, and independent 14 month-old son is replaced by a screaming demon of impatience.  That’s because we generally go for a two- or three-mile walk at 3 o’clock and nothing, not even bad weather, is going to get in the way of him enjoying a ride in the stroller.  Unfortunately, as the weather has cooled, it’s become less possible to follow our normal routes.  So on Friday, I decided to take our afternoon constitutional inside the local mall.

My Experience

I’m not a regular mall-goer—or at least, I haven’t been since I was a teenager.  Back then, buying a pair of earrings at Claire’s, eating a cinnamon bun with my BFF and scoping out the teenage boys with similarly slow social calendars was the epitome of entertainment.  But as an adult, I generally avoid the mall, and Friday’s jaunt reinforced that.  Because despite the fact that I was only there to get a little exercise, I found the following questions running through my head:

1.  What smells so good?  My son and I have a regular snack every day before our walk, so I certainly wasn’t hungry when I set foot in the mall.  But the competing aromas of cinnamon, pretzels baking, egg rolls, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and just-out-of-the-oven pizza still had me wondering if I had enough money in my wallet for a snack.

Malls make sure to have delicious smells wafting through their halls.  According to neurologist and psychiatrist Dr. Alan Hirsch, our moods can be strongly affected by smell, to the point where we might spend more money on a product because of a pleasant scent.  So not only did the food aromas make me crave treats when I wasn’t hungry, they also primed me to want to spend money on goods.  And I just wanted to take a walk!

2.  Should I buy that, since I’m already here?  There’s a reason why malls gather several different types of stores all in one place.  People love to feel as though they’re being efficient with their time, so they’ll go ahead and buy something not on their list because it saves them a trip later.  This would be fine if you really needed that second (or third or 17^th) item, but it’s a false economy of time if you wouldn’t have even thought of buying the item if you hadn’t seen it in the first place.

For me, passing by the children’s shoe store several times in our loops of the mall made me revisit our decision to keep our little one shoeless for the time being.  He’s not quite walking, so he really doesn’t need shoes.  He gets better practice with walking while barefoot, and socks keep his tootsies warm outside of the house.  But the tiny Converse All-Stars had me stopping to check prices, despite the fact that the shoes are unnecessary and will be outgrown in a matter of weeks.

3.  Should we eat out tonight?  I’m a big believer in menu planning, as it takes the tough part of cooking—figuring out what to make when everyone’s already hungry—out of the equation.  I also prefer being able to control the ingredients and portion sizes for our dinners, and save dining out for special occasions.  But even though I had chicken defrosting in the microwave for a recipe I was excited to try out, I still found myself looking longingly at the specials board for the Applebee’s at the mall.

Seeing other people enjoying a meal out without having to cook or clean was hell on my plans for dinner.  Imagining the cocktail special with a steak was much more tempting than remembering that I had onions and mushrooms to chop at home.  Luckily, my husband has a seething hatred for Applebee’s and any other restaurant where you might hear the word “flair,” so I was able to squelch that temptation before it got off the ground.

4.  What should I get everyone for the holidays?  Needless to say, wandering around the mall is not the time to start making lists for holiday gift giving.  Because something about the sound of Christmas music piped through the halls, the sight of people carrying heavy shopping bags and all the bright and beautiful merchandise on all sides can make you lose your head and buy a $100 Shiatsu massager for your mother-in-law when she’d be thrilled with some framed pictures of her grandson.  (What the heck is Shiatsu anyway?  Does anyone know?)

Despite all of these temptations, I was able to get out of the mall after our walk without spending a cent.  However, it was a lot tougher than I would have anticipated to keep my money in my wallet—I actually stopped and “browsed” several times even though I had only come to the mall to walk.  In the future, I plan to take our indoor walks cash- and card-free so I can’t succumb to temptations even if I want to.

Crystal’s Comments:  I avoid the mall unless we are purposefully going in to get Chicken Teriyaki from the Chinese place in the food court.  It’s not that I hate malls, it’s that I do not have the will power to pass up Cinnabon or Spencer’s.  Do you avoid the mall too?