This might sound like a silly question, but it is what came to mind as I drove about one night a few weeks ago. Once you have your home paid for, as well as having a decent amount of retirement savings, (and assuming you're single) then - at least for me - the urgency of working just seems to go to the wayside.

Now I spend more time looking at what I am working on and thinking about how much sense this makes (or often *doesn't), instead of just doing the work. And often it feels like I am there for just the paycheck (which is true - well that plus the health insurance).

So far this year I have gotten a combination of statement credits, bonuses, and gift cards (from credit card sign ups, brokerage sign ups, and banking sign ups) of a little over $1,000. Add to that ebay profits of about $250 to this point. When I compare that to my recurring expenses (house gas, electric, water, phone, internet, food, car gas) of about $800 so far - my bonuses are paying for all my basic expenses. The ongoing expenses the bonuses haven't covered are insurance (car & home), property taxes. If I stopped working I could cut the car insurance down by 1/3, as well 1/3 of my current gas bill - saving maybe $100 / mo. The only thing the above doesn't cover is health insurance that is mostly paid by my employer. OK, it would be a spartan life (just living off freebie bonuses), and I'm not going to go that route, but I'm just saying it could be done. It makes 'ya wonder.

If I could get my insurance free or cheap.... then I would really have to start asking myself just why am I working. I don't know... I know I have expenses coming up (replace floor in house, cut down a tree or two, replace driveway, maybe even replace the furnace), but once those are paid... its going to be hard to justify to myself why I go to work some days. I think for now the structure of getting up every day, and working out at lunch time is something I need, but long term I may start questioning this rationale.

I still have $100 in unused gift certificates and $125 in unused CC statement credits, and at the rate I am buying things (about $0 outside of the grocery store) this could take a while to burn off.

*** Random thought ***

I got a CC statement from CITI (I've since stopped using it since I did enough for my latest $100 bonus) and on the payment coupon it has the credit card showing in the format "****-***-9999". It shows they are concious of security, right??? Well right above it on the coupon is a long line of numbers used to scan the coupon in by their computer - and in the middle is the complete CC number. They call this security???? I am not surprised they needed gov't money to stay afloat if this is their idea of security (what idiots). Oh well, I've already made $200 from them this winter, perhaps they'll be kind enough to send me another offer.