Who doesn't dream of quitting their day job? Every day, countless hours are spent in corporate cubicles daydreaming about lives of adventure, creativity, and play — lives spent doing what you love.

Last month, I took the leap. I quit my day job to write full time. Now I'm sitting in Buenos Aires writing while my kids play with their grandparents nearby. And I'm getting paid for it.

To say this is the achievement of a dream would be a vast understatement; I've wanted to be "a writer" since kindergarten. But I didn't just want to be a writer — I worked hard and planned for it.

In articles about how to prevent identity theft, I've often read that one should never give out his or her social security number (SSN) unless absolutely necessary. That sounds like good common sense. But I recently found myself asking, in what situations is it actually necessary?

I've mentioned that my husband and I own land on which we are starting to build a home. The land is owner-financed, and we've had a great relationship with the sellers (who are also our future neighbors) for the past three years. Last week I received a message that they needed our SSNs. The full story wasn't clear, but it seemed they had a new CPA who said she needed our numbers to complete their taxes. This immediately set off red flags for me. This isn't to say I distrust the sellers. They are a lovely retired couple — the kind of people that invite you in for coffee when you drop off the monthly payment. But I didn't know this CPA, why she needed our SSNs when they've never been needed before, and what precautions she would take to safeguard them. So I decided to dig a little deeper. Do you have to provide your SSN because it's requested, and if not, how do you know which situations are optional?

Most employees have to submit expense reports at some point — be it for out-of-town travel, client dinners, special events, or other expenses you incur due to your job responsibilities. Keeping track of these expenses is important, otherwise you're losing money while on the job and probably not endearing yourself to your company's finance department, which relies on accurate records and timely reports from employees.

It seems straightforward enough to track your expenses, but I've personally known employees who have lost receipts and didn't get reimbursed, failed to get reimbursed because they didn't understand that an expense was reimbursable, or missed the deadline to turn in the paperwork. In all three cases, the employee paid for a company expense with their own money. Not good at all! The situation can easily be avoided with some basic steps to make sure company expenses don't affect your bottom line.

Know the Policies

Request a copy of your company's expense reimbursement policy, and make sure you understand the guidelines about the following: Continue reading...

Few concepts have had as great an impact on my family's financial decision-making as learning how to calculate our real hourly wage. The concept was introduced by (or at least popularized by) the amazing book, Your Money or Your Life. This book has had a dramatic influence over our financial turn-around (just as it did for J.D.).

The authors focus early in the book on ensuring that readers are aware of the true costs associated with their jobs and incomes — including accounting for the time we spend on activities that are often forgotten.

When Courtney and I first sat down to figure out just how many different expenses were associated with our income opportunities, it was an eye-opening experience. It unveiled a new layer of consciousness towards both our work and our spending. In one case we shifted from, "I make $42,000 per year" to "That really only results in $22,000 net after all expenses are considered."

Your net worth is based not only on how much moolah you have in the bank, but also on your human capital — that is, your ability to earn income. "We can think of human capital as assets specific to each person, such as intelligence, education, specialized skills, work ethic, and social skills in the workplace,” wrote Motley Fool contributor Doug Short (who has turned his own human capital into an investing website that's popped up as far away as an Australian business TV show — it's amazing what smart, retired people can do in their spare time).

These days, jobs are few and far between — and unemployment is poised to rise and stay high for a very long time. At a town hall meeting last year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said gross domestic product growth would have to exceed 2.5% for the unemployment rate to fall. Unfortunately, consulting firm McKinsey says that newly-thrifty baby boomers, who are now saving at rates not seen in decades, will reduce GDP growth to just 2.4% annually for the next 30 years.

So to survive in a world of long-term high unemployment, we can't take our jobs — or our human capital — for granted. Ask yourself these ten questions to make sure you're investing in your most important money-making asset: You!

<